8S 




OREGON. 



FACTS REGARDING ITS CLIMATE, SOIL, MINERAL 
AND AGRICULTURAL RESOURCES, MEANS 
OF COMMUNICATION, COMMERCE 
AND IND USTR Y, LA WS, * 

ETC, ETC. 



FOR GENERAL INFORMATION. 



WITH MAPS 




THE STATE OF OREGON 

WAS DISTINGUISHED AT THE CENTENNIAL EXHIBITION B^ 
MORE AWARDS FOR THE EXCELLENCE AND VARIETY , 
OI ITS PRODUCTS THAN COMPARATIVELY 
ANY OTHER STATE. 



Oregon state Board ol Immigration, Eastern Office, 
No. 328, WASHINGTON STREET, 

Transcript Building (Room 8), 

BOSTON, 3T^V^«. 

1S77. 




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Book. 



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OREGON 

State Board of Immigrat 

EASTERN OFFIC 

328 Washington Street. . . 
BOSTON, MASS 



EXPLANATION 



Railroads ..... 

tt projected 

Wagon Roads .... 
Ore.& Cat.R.R.Zands 




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OREGON. 



FACTS REGARDING ITS CLIMATE, SOIL, MINERAL 

AND AGRICULTURAL RESOURCES, MEANS 

OF COMMUNICATION, COMMERCE 

AND INDUSTRY, LAWS, 

ETC, ETC. 



FOR GENERAL INFORMATION, 



WITH MAPS. 





THE STATE OF OREGON 

WAS DISTINGUISHED AT THE CENTENNIAL EXHIBITION BY 

MORE AWARDS FOR THE EXCELLENCE AND VARIETY 

OF ITS PRODUCTS THAN COMPARATIVELY 

ANY OTHER STATE. 



Oregon state Board ot Immigration, Eastern Office, 
No. 328, WASHINGTON STREET, 

Transcript Building (Room 8), 
BOSTON, MASS. 

1877. 



orm.. 



. Franklin Press : 

Rand, Avery, and Company, 

IIJ Franklin Street, 

Boston. 



.0 



w 







OREGON. 



Before the construction of railroads to the Pacific, the States of 
California and Oregon were, owing to the difficulty of reaching them, 
practically as remote from the Atlantic and Western States as though 
they formed part of another continent. The fame of their favored 
climate and great natural resources had previously attracted to them, 
it is true, a considerable population from the older States; but the flow 
of immigration remained sluggish until the completion of those artifi- 
cial highways had greatly reduced the expenditure of time and money, 
and the hardships involved in the journey to the Pacific. Since then 
a much larger and steadily increasing number of emigrants from the 
States east and west of the Alleghanies, as well as from Europe, have 
sought and found homes on the Pacific coast. 

No one in our day will be bold enough to dispute the fact that the 
Pacific States possess natural advantages far superior to those of any 
of the Eastern, Western, or Southern States. In natural beauty, 
mildness and salubrity of climate, varied productiveness of soil, and 
richness in mineral and other resources, they are incomparably more 
attractive than most of the latter. They are, indeed, among the most 
favored lands on the face of the globe, and certain to develop into great 
and prosperous commonwealths. The only wonder with those familiar 
with their attractions is, that they have not filled up much more rap- 
idly with population. 

Of the two Pacific States, California, from its greater accessibility, 
is more widely known than Oregon. Yet the latter State indisputably 
deserves the attention of intending emigrants from older communities 
more than California. This fact is not admitted by Californians, who 
have a way of decrying Oregon for the benefit of their State. But it 
is a fact, nevertheless, confirmed by all impartial observers familiar 
with the two States. While hardly less rich in natural resources, Oregon 
is free from various disadvantages under which the other State labors, 
notwithstanding its superiority in most respects over tlie States that 
have heretofore absorbed the largest part of American and European 
emigration. Oregon does not suffer from the extremes of intense cold 
and heat that are so trying to human existence, and often so fatal to 
the labors of the husbandman in other States, and has a less extreme 
summer climate than even California. Hurricanes, whirlwinds, grass- 

3 



4 

hoppers, locusts, droughts, and other afflictions of the Eastern farmer, 
are unknown within its limits. 

In consequence of such droughts, California had failures of the wheat 
crop in**1869, 1870, 1871, a partial one in 1875, and is threatened with 
another during the present year. In the San Joaquin Valley, which 
is considered one of the richest parts of California, the distress was so 
great in 1871, that contributions were solicited in San Francisco to 
provide the impoverished farmers with seed-grain. It was similar to 
that caused by the devastations of the grasshoppers in parts of Nebraska, 
Kansas, and Minnesota, in 1874. Many farmers were entirely ruined. 
In view of this past experience, it can be said, indeed, that frequent 
seasons of drought form one of the regular drawbacks to agriculture in 
California. As a protection against drought, irrigation is resorted to ; 
but this requires the investment of large capital, increases the cost of 
labor, and at best it can furnish only an imperfect substitute for rain- 
fall. Oregon, on the contrary, has not lost a single crop from drought 
since it was first settled by Americans. 

The winter of 1874-75 clearly demonstrated one great advantage 
which Oregon possesses over California. During it, after protracted 
dry, parching weather, heavy showers fell for several days in California, 
producing a sudden rise in the rivers and creeks, and causing freshets, 
accompanied by great destruction of property. Not only were great 
portions of the inundated land rendered useless for some time to come, 
but railroad and ordinary bridges swept away, dams broken, railroad- 
tracks washed off, and travel interrupted. In Oregon much more rain 
fell in the aggregate during that same winter than in California, and 
yet no floods occurred. Rain falls there in almost every month, while 
in California hardly any rain falls during the greater part of the year, 
and the frequent extreme droughts are always followed there by destruc- 
tive floods. Oregon owes this advantage over her sister State to her 
extensive forests, which at once help to produce rain, and prevent a 
large percentage of the rain from reaching the ground at all. This 
latter has by recent observations been found to be from twenty to 
twenty-five per cent. Besides, the grass and moss will retard the flow 
of the water to such a degree, that another portion of twenty-five per 
cent will evaporate, and never reach the water-courses in the valleys, 
thus leaving only one-half of the whole rainfall to be carried away by 
the creeks and rivers. 

Again, California is destitute of timber, while Oregon possesses a 
great variety of it, and supplies the markets of California, South 
America, Australia, Japan, and China with lumber. Moreover, Oregon 
is freer from disease engendered by local causes than California, espe- 
cially as regards fever and ague, which prevails extensively in such 
ralleys as those of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers, with much 



EXPLANATION 



Railroads 

Wagon Roads 

Orc.S CalJR.Ji.Zanas . 




overflown land. Furthermore, Oregon presents far better opportunities 
for acquiring good lands cheaply, and holding them under simple and 
secure titles, than California, where lands are monopolized in enormous 
tracts by comparatively few owners, and the derivation of titles under 
Spanish and Mexican grants renders them insecure, and gives rise to 
much litigation. And lastly, the very fact that Oregon has so far 
attracted less immigration than California, leaves a wider field and better 
chances for new-comers within its limits. The Oregon and California 
Railroad Company sell their lands at very low prices, and on favorable 
terms ; and an abundance of government land can be had under the 
Homestead Law. 

Oregon possesses other substantial advantages over California, in 
lower taxation, and in the insignificant State debt, as will appear from 
the following official figures : — 

Taxation. State. County. Town, City, &c. Total. 

Oregon, $177,653 $362,753 $40,550 $580,956 

California, 2,540,383 5,068,041 208,691 7,817,115 

Average each person, Oregon, $6.40 ; California, $14. 

Public indebtedness. State. County. Town, City, &c. Total. 

Oregon, $106,583 $105,903 $6,000 $218,486 

California, 3,429,027 13,817,711 842,344 18,089,082 

Average each person, Oregon, $2.40 ; California, $32. 

The unsurpassed natural advantages of Oregon have lately attracted 
more notice than ever before, as witnessed by the great number of 
inquiries about the State from persons thinking of emigrating to it. 
To furnish, in reply to those inquiries, perfectly truthful and impartial 
information on the various subjects of interest to immigrants, is the 
object of the following pages. 

Frc m the fact that the western part of the State is the most thickly 
settled and best improved section, and the best adapted to agricultural 
pursuits, it follows naturally that the following pages will be mainly 
devoted to a description of it. 

Geographical. 

Oregon is the most north-westerly State in the Union, being situ- 
ated between the forty-second and forty-sixth degrees of northern 
latitude. It is bounded on the east by Idaho, on the west by the 
Pacific Ocean, on the north -by the Columbia River, and on the south 
by California and Nevada. It extends, on an average, for three hun- 
dred and fifty miles east and west, and for two hundred aid seventy- 
five miles north and south, and contains 95,274 square miles, with an 
area of about sixty millions of acres. 

# 



6 

The Cascade Mountains, a continuation of the mountain ranges of 
California, stretch across the State north and south, at a distance of 
ahout a hundred and ten miles from the Pacific. Numerous barren 
snow-capped peaks, of volcanic origin, rise from them to great heights 
within the limits of Oregon, of which the most elevated are Mount 
Hood (11,025 feet), Mounts Jefferson, Thielsen, Scott, Pitt, and the 
Three Sisters. The Cascade Range divides Oregon into two distinct 
sections, known as Eastern and Western Oregon. Of these the former 
contains by far the most territory, but the latter is far more advanced 
in civilization, and within its natural boundaries, that is, between the 
Cascade Mountains and the Pacific coast, well-nigh nine-tenths of the 
present popi lation of the State are living. 

-Another chain of mountains, the so-called Coast Range, extends, also 
north and south, over Western Oregon, at a distance varying from 
forty to seventy miles from the Cascade Mountains, and proportionately 
nearer to the Pacific coast. Its elevation, is, however, much lower than 
that of the latter, its highest points being not more than five thousand 
feet, and its average height about two thousand five hundred feet 
above the level of the sea. Eastern Oregon is subdivided, so to speak, 
into Middle Oregon and Eastern Oregon proper, by the Blue Moun- 
tains, — ; a range with a general north and south direction, at a dis- 
tance of about a hundred and fifty miles east of the Cascade Mountains. 

The Cascade Mountains, in conjunction with the Coast Range and 
the numerous chains of hills flanking and skirting and running out 
from them, divide the surface of Western Oregon into numerous val- 
leys of varying extent, traversed by more or less important water- 
courses. 

The largest rivers of Western Oregon are the Columbia, which sepa- 
rates it on the north from Washington Territory; the Willamette, the 
largest tributary of the Columbia ; Young, and Lewis and Clark Rivers, 
also flowing into the Columbia ; the Rogue, Coquille, Umpqua, Sius- 
law, Alseya, Siletz, and Nehalem, emptying into the Pacific ; and the 
Tualatin, Clackamas, Yamhill, Mollala, Santiam, Luckiamute, Mary, 
and Long Tom Rivers, all tributaries of the Willamette, which itself is 
formed by three separate streams known as McKenzie's, Middle, and 
Coast Forks. 

The principal watercourses of Middle Oregon are the Des Chutes, 
John Day's, and Umatilla Rivers, and their numerous tributaries the 
Waters of which unite with the Columbia. 

The principal river of Eastern Oregon proper is the Snake River, 
which separates Oregon from Idaho, and its main tributaries, the 
Grande Roride, Powder, Burnt, Malheur, and Owyhee Rivers. 

There are numerous lakes in South-eastern Oregon, the principal of 
which are Klamath, Goose, and Warner's Lakes, and Lake Harney. 
% 



Historical. 

In 1792 Capfc. Gray of Boston, commanding the ship u Columbia," 
discovered and ascended the river named after the latter. This discov- 
ery formed the basis for the subsequent claim of the United States to, 
and acquisition of, the territory now embraced in Oregon. 

In 1804-5 Capts. Lewis and Clark crossed the Rocky Mountains, 
and descended the Columbia River to the Pacific. Their official report 
first made the great resources of that part of the Pacific coast generally 
known. 

In 1810 the first house was built in Oregon by Capt. Winship, 
another New-England seafarer. In 1811 John Jacob Astor of New 
York established a trading-post at the mouth of the Columbia River; 
which was named " Astoria," in his honor. The venture proved disas- 
trous, mainly in consequence of the war between the United States and 
Great Britain in 1812. The British took possession of the post in 
1813, and called it Fort George. Subsequently it became the prop- 
erty of the Hudson Bay Company, and remained in its possession until 
1848. 

The North-west Fur Company disputed for a time the rule of the 
latter company on the Pacific coast, but had to succumb in a few years, 
and was absorbed by its rival in 1824 ; from which time till 1848 the 
latter ruled supreme in the valleys of the Columbia and Willamette. 

In 1824 the first fruit-trees were planted in Oregon, and in 1831 
the first regular attempts at farming made by some of the retired ser- 
vants of the Hudson Bay Company. In 1832 the first school was 
opened. Between 1834 and 1837, missionaries of various denomina- 
tions arrived, bringing the first cattle with them. In 1838 the first 
printing-press arrived in Oregon. In 1841 Commodore Wilkes visited 
the Columbia on an exploring expedition, at the instance of the Amer- 
can Government. 

From 1816 to 1846, the American and British Governments held 
Oregon by "joint occupancy," under a formal treaty. Yet up to 1843 
the inhabitants of Oregon did not enjoy the benefit of any form of civil 
government whatever. But, in the year last named, the first steps 
were taken towards the organization of a provisional government, 
which was formally accepted by the people at a general election held 
in 1845. 

In 1843 and the following years, a considerable immigration of 
I. nericans took place, mainly from the border slave States, so that in 
1^46 the entire white population numbered about ten thousand. In 

1846 the first newspaper was started. In the same year, Oregon was 
formally added to the United States by treaty with Great Britain. In 

1847 a massacre of settlers by the Indians occurred, which was the 
beginning of much trouble with the aborigines. 



8 

In 1848 Oregon was organized by Congress as a Territory. In 
1849 Joseph Lane entered upon office as the first Territorial governor. 

In 1850 Congress, in order to encourage immigration to Oregon, 
passed the " Donation Law," under which all who had emigrated or 
would emigrate to Oregon before Dec. 1, 1850, received liberal grants 
of public land. A married couple received six hundred and forty, sin- 
gle men three hundred and twenty acres. After the date named, the 
grant was limited to half the quantity. This action of the Government 
greatly helped the settlement and development of the country. 

Oregon received some of the tide of immigration attracted to the 
Pacific coast by the discovery of gold in 1848-49 ; but the gold-fever 
Also drew away a good many of its inhabitants to California. Those 
that remained in the State had no reason to regret it ; for, in those 
years, all kinds of agricultural products brought fabulous prices in the 
California mines. 

The progress of Oregon was very much retarded by the troubles 
with the Indians in 1855, 1858, and subsequent years. Lasting peace 
was only restored within the last few years by the removal of the 
Indians to reservations. 

In 1859 Oregon was admitted into the Union as a sovereign State, 
with a population at the time of 52,465 souls. 

The difficulty of marketing the abundant agricultural products 
proved a serious impediment to the material progress of Oregon, and 
the growth of the State was but slow until 1869, when the construction 
of railroads was commenced. Two hundred and fifty miles of railway 
have been built up to this time. With the advent of railroads every 
material interest in Oregon received a new impetus, and the pros- 
perity of the State has greatly increased since. According to the 
census of 1870 the population of Oregon was 90,923. State census, 
1875, 100,000, exclusive of 7,000 new settlers arriving too late in the 
year for enumeration. 

Aspect of the Country. 

It is but stating a fact, that no one has ever visited Oregon without 
becoming deeply impressed with the natural beauty of the country. 
It is, indeed, no exaggeration to say that it is not surpassed by any 
other part of the United States in attractiveness and variety of scenery. 
Nowhere east or west of the Rocky Mountains can there be seen such 
at once grand and picturesque landscapes as one finds all over Western 
Oregon. The combination of mountain and valley, woodland and 
prairie, river and ocean, is beautiful beyond description. Lofty peaks 
raise their snowy heads far above the horizon ; beneath them stretch 
out fir and pine clad ranges of mountains ; between them extend great 
undulating valleys, dotted with timber, and traversed by fine rivers. 



9 

And Nature's own hand has given to this whole region such i finished 
look, that one involuntarily is deluded into the belief of being in a 
country long a seat of civilization, and not in one where the white 
race appeared only two generations since. This allusion is heightened 
by the extraordinarily vigorous and perfect growth which, under the 
peculiar influences of the local climate, tree and plant everywhere 
attain. 

Among the distinctive features of Oregon are tbe numer&us valleys 
formed, as already stated, by tbe several mountain chains, and the 
minor ranges issuing from them. 

The principal ones in Western Oregon are tbe Willamette, Umpqua, 
and Rogue River Valleys, each of which deserves particular mention. 

The Willamette Valley is by far the largest and most attractive in 
every respect. It has been appropriately named " the garden of the 
North-west." None of the famous valleys of the Old or New World, 
not even that of the Sacramento, San Joaquin, or Santa Clara Valleys 
in California, surpass it in fertility or salubrity. In beauty of scenery 
its equal is not to be found anywhere. Ex- Vice-President Schuyler 
Colfax enthusiastically pronounced it, " as charming a landscape as ever 
painter's brush placed upon canvas." The late A. D. Richardson, in 
his work entitled "Beyond the Mississippi," describes it thus: "At 
last we descended from the summit of the Callapoia Mountains into 
the great Willamette Valley, fifty miles by one hundred and fifty, — 
the garden of Oregon, and containing more than one-half of its entire 
population. To one coming from dreary Nevada deserts, or California 
fields dull and withered in the rainless months, very delightful are its 
deep forests, rich meadows, and groves of drooping oaks ; its pleasant 
homes, embowered in green ; its bright, flowing river darkened with 
slender pines. Excepting probably the Indian Territory south of 
Kansas, it is the richest farming region of the United States." It is 
about a hundred and fifty miles in length, from thirty to sixty miles in 
width, and contains within its natural boundaries — viz., the Columbia 
River on the north, the Cascade Mountains on the east, the Coast 
Range on the west, and the Callapoia Mountains on the south — about 
five millions of acres, of which area nearly the whole is of unusual 
productiveness, while only about one-tenth is now under cultivation. 
It is well watered throughout by the Willamette and its tributaries. 
The most important towns of the State are situated, and fully two- 
1 birds of the population of Western Oregon live, within it. 

The Umpqua Valiey lies to the south of the Callapoia Mountains, 
and is watered by the river of the same name and its tributaries. Its 
eastern boundary is formed by the Cascade Mountains, its western by 
the Coast Range, and its southern by the Grave-creek Range. It 
contains about two million five hundred thousand acres. 



10 

To the south of the chain of mountains last named lies the Valley 
of the Rogue River, which has the same boundaries to the east and 
west as the two other valleys described, and is bounded on the south 
by the Siskiyou Mountain, which separates it from California. Its 
surface comprises about two million four hundred thousand acres. 

These several valleys do not consist of wide plains, but partake more 
of a gently undulating character. Hill and dale follow in succession, 
except in the central part of the Willamette Valley, where there is a 
perfectly level prairie of extraordinary fertility, about forty miles long 
and thirty miles wide. 

Besides these three great valleys, those of nearly all the other 
streams heretofore named in connection with Western Oregon possess 
more or less attractiveness. 

There are no great agricultural valleys, like those of the western 
part of the State, in Middle Oregon. The country south of the Colum- 
bia, and between the Cascade and Blue Mountains, for a distance of 
two hundred miles, consists of a high rolling plain. 

In Eastern Oregon proper, the valleys of the Grande Ronde, Powder, 
and Burnt Rivers resemble those of Western Oregon. The Grande 
Ronde Valley is said to contain about two hundred and seventy-five 
thousand acres of tillable land. 

Climate. — Salubrity. 

The climate of Western Oregon is peculiarly mild and equable, and 
far more pleasant and healthful than that of other American States in 
the same latitude. Neither the sudden and wide variations of tem- 
perature with which all the States east of the Rocky Mountains, and 
north of the thirty-fifth degree of northern latitude, are more or less 
afflicted, nor the extremes of heat in the summer, and cold in the 
winter, found in the same States, prevail. The temperature is mod- 
erated in the hot as well as in the cold season by the trade-winds of the 
Pacific, which blow from the north-west in the summer, and from the 
south-west in the winter. To the proximity of the great Japan current, 
or Pacific Gulf Stream, to the Oregon coast, much of the uniform mild- 
ness and evenness of the temperature is also due. As ascertained by 
observations made at the United States Signal-Service Office in the 
State, the average temperature in Western Oregon is in spring 52°, 
in summer 67°, in autumn 53°, and in winter 39°, Fahrenheit. The 
thermometer seldom rises above 90° in the hottest days of the summer, 
and rarely falls below 20° in the winter; so that the most active 
out-door labor may be performed at all times of the year, and at all 
hours of the day. The differences of temperature marking the seasons 
in other parts of the world being unknown, it may be said, indeed, 
that there are but two seasons in Oregon ; namely, a wet and a dry one. 



11 

The wet or rainy season usually begins about the middle of Novem- 
ber, and lasts until early in May, with many intermissions of fine 
weather for days, and even for weeks. The copious rains which fall 
during this period are, although sometimes disagreeable from their 
continuity, the greatest blessing; since their regularity, in the absence 
of severe frosts, always insures, abundant crops, and plentiful natural 
pasturage. This is especially the case in the Willamette Valley, where 
the average yearly rainfall is forty-four inches (about the same as at 
Davenport, Io., Memphis, and Philadelphia); while in the Umpqua 
and Rogue-river Valleys, though something less, it is still sufficiently 
heavy to prevent droughts. The rain is always gradual, seldom falling 
in torrents, or accompanied by disastrous floods and inundations. That 
the rainfall is not excessive, will appear from the weather records 
of the United States Signal Office during the last twelve years, accord- 
ing to which the average year in Oregon is composed of two hundred 
and thirty-three rainless, a hundred and twenty-two rainy, and ten 
snowy da^ys. The last mentioned usually occur in December and Jan- 
uary, rarely in February : snow, however, as a rule, does not fall in 
large quantities, or remain long on the ground. Since the settlement 
of the country, real wintry weather has not been experienced more than 
once in eight or ten years, when the ground is covered with snow from 
two to four weeks. 

The month of January of the year 1875 was marked by a cold 
spell of unusual severity, during which the thermometer fell to zero 
(Fahrenheit), and the navigable rivers were obstructed by ice. The 
mercury has never before been known to fall so low. On the con- 
trary, the winter of 1876-77 was remarkable for a long term of clear 
and mild weather. 

From early in May till the end of June, the weather is usually 
warm and clear, with occasional showers, which refresh nature, and 
dress it in charming verdure. The dry season proper begins about 
July, and lasts until October, with occasional showers in September, 
which prepare the ground for the plough. Even the warmest summer 
days are tempered by sea-breezes, and succeeded by cool nights.* 

The climate of Middle and Eastern Oregon differs in this from that 
of the western part of the State, that there is much less rainfall in the 
winter, and consequently more coldness in the latter, and more diyness 
in the summer. 

Western Oregon is almost exempt from the violent atmospheric dis- 
turbances so common in the Eastern States. Thunder-storms are of 
very rare occurrence ; and hail-storms, hurricanes, whirlwinds, earth- 
quaJzes, and other destructive phenomena, are entirely unknown. The 
comparative freedom of this section of country from high winds is fully 

* See meteorological tables in the Appendix. 



12 

shown by the regular government wind records, extending over a period 
of twenty- five years, during which only three winds blew over the 
State with a velocity of forty-five miles to the hour, and a force of ten 
poynds to the square foot. In Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and 
Connecticut, there were four winds of equal velocity and gravity in 
*hirty months? while in Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Iowa, and Wis- 
■vNnsii;, during a period of only twenty-six months, there were twenty- 
live winds moving at the rate of forty-five miles, two winds moving at 
the rate of seventy-five miles, and two hurricanes with the frightful 
velocity of ninety miles an hour. 

That the climate of Western Oregon is unusually conducive to 
health, the air being peculiarly pure and mild and yet bracing, is 
proved by evidence of a very conclusive character. The Coast Range 
affords protection from the ocean gales, while the Cascade Mountains 
keep out cold winds and snow-storms from the north and east to a 
great extent, though not entirely so. The exemption from sharp 
winds and violent changes of temperature, thus secured, renders the 
inhabitants far less liable to throat and lung troubles, rheumatism, and 
inflammatory diseases generally, than in other parts of the Union. 

Western Oregon is not exempt from fevers, but the inhabitants 
suffer much less from such than elsewhere in the United States. Ty- 
phus and typhoid fevers occur, but have never prevailed to an epidemic 
extent. Of malarious fevers, which are so troublesome in the Western 
States, and even in the valleys of California, only a mild type occurs, 
which yields readily to treatment. A well-known physician, a resi- 
dent of Oregon for twenty years, in treating of the subject, says, — 

" For our somewhat remarkable immunity from malarial disorders, 
considering the extent and depth of our river-bottoms, we are indebted 
to our northern latitude, to the daily sea-breeze borne to us from the 
waters of the Pacific, to our cool, bracing nights, and to the medium 
temperature of even our warmest days." 

In the warmest summer months children are troubled in Oregon, as 
elsewhere, with summer complaint ; but the disease is ordinarily quite 
amenable to treatment, and seldom runs into dysentery. 

. The greater dryness of Middle and Eastern Oregon renders these 
sections even more exempt from throat and lung troubles, rheumatism, 
and fevers, than the region west of the Cascade Mountains. 

According to the official report of the Surgeon-General of the United 
States Army, the deaths from fever at the military posts in Oregon com- 
pare as follows with those at posts in other parts of the country : — 

Oregon, 1 death in ...... 529 

New England, 1 death in ..... 283 

Southern frontier of Texas, 1 death in . . . .67 

St. Louis, Mo., 1 death in . . . . . .113 

New York Harbor, 1 death in 66 



13 



But the most striking illustration of the general healtlifulness of 
Oregon is afforded by the mortality statistics taker, in connection with 
the national census of 1870. According to them, the death-rate in 
Oregon was less than in any other State or Territory, with the single 
exception of Idaho, as will be seen from the following table, giving the 
exact figures of the census. The percentage of deaths to population 



was, m 



OREGON. 


. 0.69 


Mississippi. 


. 1.11 


Alabama . 


. 1.08 


Missouri 


. 1.63 


Arizona 


. 2.61 


Montana . 


, 0.90 


Arkansas . 


. 1.26 


Nebraska . l 


. 0.81 


California . 


. 1.61 


Nevada 


. 1.45 


Colorado . 


, . 0.94 


New Hampshire 


. 1.35 


Connecticut 


. 1.26 


New Jersey 


.-■ . 1.17 


Dakota 


. 0.71 


New Mexico 


. 1.28 


Delaware . 


. 1.25 


New York . 


. 1.58 


District of Columbia 


. 1.53 


North Carolina . 


. 0.98 


Florida 


. 1.21 


Ohio . 


. 1.11 


Georgia 


. 1.15 


Pennsylvania 


. 1.49 


Idaho 


. 0.33 


Rhode Island 


. 1.26 


Illinois 


. 1.33 


South Carolina . 


. 1.05 


Indiana 


. 1.05 


Tennessee . . 


. 1.13 


Iowa . 


. 0.81 


Texas 


. 1.37 


Kansas 


. 1.25 


Utah .-..;, 


. 1.03 


Kentucky . 


. 1.09 


Vermont . 


. 1.07 


Louisiana . 


. 2.00 


Virginia 


. 1.24 


Maine 


. 1.23 


Washington 


. 0.93 


Maryland . 


. 1.24 


West Virginia . 


. 0.91 


Massachusetts . 


. 1.77 


Wisconsin . 


. 0.94 


Michigan . . . 


. 0.94 


Wyoming . 


. 0.81 


Minnesota . 


. 0.80 







Natural Resources. 

Soil. — In treating of the soil of Western Oregon, reference has to 
be made not only to the valleys, but also to their elevated boundaries. 
For it is another peculiar feature of Oregon, that the so-called "foot- 
hills," as the outrunners of the mountain ranges, are called, are gen- 
erally covered with productive soil, and that even the surface of the 
mountains is productive to a considerable extent. 

The general character of the soil in the valleys is a dark loam and 
vegetable mould, with a clay subsoil. The soil of the bottom lands, 
contiguous to the water-courses, is generally composed of rich alluvial 
deposits of decomposed earth and vegetable mould. The so-called 
beaver-dam lands contain deep accumulations of earthy deposits, de- 



14 

cayed vegetable matter, and decomposed trees, the work during cen- 
turies of beavers, and are of extraordinary richness, but limited in 
extent. Most of the lands in the larger valleys are of great fertility. 
This is especially true of the level and rolling prairies between the 
river-bottoms and foot-hills. Besides the large valleys of the Willa- 
mette, Umpqua, and Rogue Rivers, and their tributaries, those of the 
Young, Lewis and Clark, Nehalem, and Coquille Rivers, and of Skip- 
panon Creek, the basins of Tillamook and Yaquina Bay, and the so- 
called Clatsop Plain, offer fine fields for agricultural pursuits in Western 
Oregon. The action of the clay subsoil in retaining moisture accounts 
for the exceeding productiveness of the soil. The land, too, retains its 
productive capacity for unusually long periods of time, and seems, 
indeed, all but inexhaustible. Even after having produced crops of 
wheat, oats, and barley, for from fifteen to thirty years, without any 
manure, and with indifferent ploughing, it remains unusually fertile. 

The soil of the foot-hills and tillable mountain surfaces consists of 
red, brown, or black loam, the black predominating near the mountain 
ranges. The elevated lands not only afford the best natural pasturage, 
but produce good crops of hay, cereals, vegetables, and fruit. 

In Middle or Eastern Oregon, good soil for agricultural purposes is 
not so generally found as west of the Cascade Mountains : the best 
openings are in the valleys along water-courses. In some parts of 
these districts artificial irrigation has to be employed to make the soil 
productive. 

Timber. — The Cascade Mountains, the Coast Range, and the Cal- 
lapoia Mountains, as well as a large part of the valleys of Western 
Oregon, are covered with mighty forests, affording an inexhaustible 
supply of hard and soft timber. In the valleys, different kinds of ash, 
oak, maple, balm, and alder, as well as fir, cedar, spruce, pine, and yew, 
grow in great abundance. In the foot-hills, scattering oaks and firs, 
with a thick second growth in many places, are found. The mountains 
are mostly covered with thick growths of tall fir, pine, spruce, hemlock, 
cedar, larch, and laurel, without much undergrowth. Two kinds of 
cedar, three of fir (red, yellow, and white), and three of pine, are indi- 
genous to Oregon. Trees attain an unusually fine development, both 
as regards height and symmetrical form. In the northern part of the 
State the red fir abounds, and often measures two hundred to two hun- 
dred and fifty feet in height, with trunks nine feet in diameter, clear of 
branches up for one hundred to one hundred and fifty feet. Out of such 
trees eighteen rail-cuts have been made, and five thousand to ten thou- 
sand feet of lumber. Elder-stalks from eighteen to thirty inches in 
circumference, hazel-bushes from one to five inches in diameter, are of 
common occurrence. Lumber is cut from alder saw-logs measuring 
twenty to thirty inches* in diameter. In the forests south of the Umpqua 



15 

the yellow pine is found, as also an abundance of sugar-pine, the wood 
of which is in great demand. For commercial and industrial purposes, 
the red cedar, red fir, hemlock, sugar-pine, maple, and ash, are the most 
valuable. Black walnut and hickory have been introduced and culti- 
vated with success.* 

Minerals. — The mineral wealth of Oregon is very great, but as 
yet very imperfectly developed, mainly owing to the want of capital. 
Gold was first discovered in 1851, in the counties of Jackson and 
Josephine, in the extreme south of the State ; and mining industry 
promises to take a new start there, placer as well as quartz mines 
having been discovered within the* last two years, which are very 
promising. Most of these mines are situated near the stage-line, sixty 
to seventy miles south of Roseburg, the terminus of the Oregon and 
California Railroad. Baker and Grant Counties, in Eastern Oregon, 
have also yielded many millions of the precious metal. In Baker 
County, especially in the vicinity of Baker City, gold-mining is carried 
on very actively at this time, and with good results. On the ocean- 
beach, near Coos Bay, placer-mines are worked to a considerable extent. 
Hick gold-quartz lodes have been discovered, and partially worked, in 
the southern part of the Cascade Mountains ; but their distance from 
railroads, and the want of machinery for working them, has until now 
prevented their development on a scale commensurate with their rich- 
ness. Were the same amount of capital, enterprise, and trained skill 
brought to bear upon the gold-mines of Oregon, that is now again 
increasing the gold product of California at a rapid rate after years of 
decline, the former State would not be far behind the latter in the 
production of precious metals. The yearly gold product of Oregon 
represents now a value of over $1,500,000. 

Lead and copper have been found in large quantities in Jackson, 
Josephine, and Douglas Counties, on Cow Creek, a tributary of the 
Umpqua, and also on the Santiam River. 

Large deposits of rich iron ore exist in nearly every part of the State. 
The most important of these is situated near Oswego, on the Willa- 
mette, about six miles south of Portland. The ore from it yields about 
fifty-four per cent of pure iron. Other extensive deposits exist in the 
counties of Columbia, Tillamook, Marion, Clackamas, Jackson, and 
Coos. A large bed of ore has been found at St. Helen's, on the Columbia. 

That essential element in the development of mineral resources, coal, 
abounds in Oregon no less than iron. Beds of great thickness exist 
on Coos Bay, in Coos County, on the northern Umpqua, and in other 

* Veneers made from the Oregon maple were exhibited at the Centennial of 1876. 
They were universally admired, and awarded a medal and diploma " for," in the words of 
the judges, approved by the commissioners, " rare beauty, extreme fineness of grain, 
beautiful polish, toughness of fibre, and of great value for ornamental and cabinet work." 
Again, Oregon Curled Maple, " For beauty of specimen." 



16 

parts of Douglas County. Beds, as yet but partially explored, have 
been found on Yaquina Bay, at Port Oxford, near St. Helen's, on Pass 
Creek, on the line of the Oregon and California Railroad, and at dif- 
ferent other points in Clackamas, Clatsop, and Tillamook Counties. 
But only a few of these coal-mines are regularly worked. The Coos 
Bay mines keep a fleet of schooners busy carrying coal to San Francisco, 
where it is highly esteemed. With the exception of one other kind, it 
is the best coal produced on the Pacific coast. 

What with the abundance of coal, and the wealth of iron, the day 
cannot be far distant when Oregon will have a well-developed iron 
industry. 

Limestone, brown and gray sandstone, and marble-quarries, are being 
worked in the State. 

Natural Pasturage. — The natural grasses of Western Oregon 
are of a fine quality, and retain their fattening qualities until late in 
the autumn. The rains, which fall regularly in May and June, pre- 
vent an early drying up. In the foot-hills, especially where the timber 
has been destroyed by fire, wild pea-vine grows in great abundance, 
furnishing most excellent pasturage for stock. But it is in Middle 
Oregon, especially in the south-eastern portion of it, that the most 
extensive natural pasturage is found. It is estimated that the pasture- 
ground there comprises about 33,000,000 acres. A great variety of 
native grasses grow in this vast region. In short, Oregon, as a whole, 
is a very fine grazing-country. Stock generally obtain green pasturage 
all winter. 

Water Supply. — What is stated in the foregoing, under the head 
" Climate," regarding the regularity and copiousness of rain in Western 
Oregon, accounts in the largest measure for the fact that it is one of 
the best- watered regions in the Union. The snow in the high moun- 
tains is another unfailing source of supply, from which all the streams 
arising in the Cascade Mountains are regularly fed during the warm 
season. Fine springs abound. Nowhere in Western Oregon is there 
a scarcity of water. But in certain parts of the country east of the 
Cascade Mountains, where the rainfall during- the winter is not so 
copious, the supply is insufficient.* 

The vast water-power of Western Oregon will be described in Ihe 
subsequent chapter on Commerce and Industry. 

Fisheries. — The lakes, rivers, streams, and creeks of Oregon, be- 
yond the reach of tide-water, teem with trout of superior quality. In 
some rivers in South-eastern Oregon, the sucker-fish is found in im- 
mense quantities ; also in the Willamette. The Columbia River, and 
other rivers emptying into the ocean, abound with salmon and stur- 
geon ; while tom-cod, flounders, and other kinds of sea-fish, are caught 

* See meteorological tables in Appendix. 



IT 

along the coast. Shell-fish, such as oysters, clams, crahs, mussels, and 
shrimps, are found on Tillamook and Yaquina Bays, and other points 
on the coast. 

Trout and salmon constitute an article of trade, but the former, as 
yet, only to a limited extent. The salmon-fisheries of the Columbia 
River, however, are of great commercial importance. The fishing 'sea- 
son begiDS in April, and is over by the end of July. The fish are 
taken in tide-water by nets and traps, in imniense quantities, as they 
ascend the river fresh from the ocean. They are cured fresh, in one 
and two pound cans, and cured by pickle in barrels and half-barrels. 
The Columbia salmon is very fat, and of peculiarly fine flavor.* Sal- 
mon-fishing is also carried on at the mouths of the Rogue, Umpqua, 
Coquille, and Nehalem Rivers, where the catches, however, serve prin- 
cipally to supply the home consumption. 

Game. — It would be difficult to find a finer field for the sportsman 
than Oregon. In all the valleys of the State, deer, pheasants, grouse, 
quail, snipe, — the last four of unusual size, — abound. In the fall, 
wild geese and ducks swarm along many of the water-courses. Wild 
swans are very numerous on the lakes and rivers of South-eastern 
Oregon. In the sage districts of the latter region, the sage-hen makes 
its home. The Cascade and Coast Ranges and the minor chains are 
frequented by elk, deer, and antelope, in great numbers, as also by 
yellow and silver foxes, mink, and marten. Black, cinnamon, and 
grizzly bears, wild-cat, wolf, and the cougar, roam in these mountains. 
Of the larger game, however, only deer visit the inhabited portions of 
the State. 

Products. 

Western Oregon is unquestionably the finest farming country in the 
United States. In its rich soil and. mild climate, almost every kind of 
agricultural product grown in the temperate zone in America and 
Europe can be raised, and attains a perfection, both as to size and 
quality, that is rarely found in other parts of the Union, not even 
excepting California. 

Grain, f — The leading staple of Oregon is wheat, which is noted for 
its superior quality and large yield, and commands a high price in the 

* Oregon Salmon, as prepared for the markets of the world, was exhibited at the 
Centennial of 1876, and awarded medals and diplomas, "for," in the words of the 
judges, approved by the commissioners, " in cans, very great excellence, the preparation 
being wonderfully sound, and of choice flavor." 

" Pickled, a very excellent preparation." Again, " for good flavor and soundness." 
t Several medals and diplomas were awarded by Centennial Commissioners to Oregon 
exhibiters for fifteen varieties of wheat, five of oats, white rye in grain, with straw nine 
feet high ; again, " ninoty-day white wheat," grain and sheaf, raised upon land neither 
ploughed nor harrowed, and yielding thirty bushels per acre. Also upon Oregon flauB and 
oatmeal, all of excellent quality. 



18 

grain markets of the world. The 'berry is very fair and full, often 
weighing from sixty-five to sixty-nine pounds to the bushel me fcsure- 
ment, making it the heaviest wheat in the world, excelling the cele- 
brated Australian wheat by three pounds to the bushel, and command- 
ing the highest prices in the Liverpool market. 

Next in importance to wheat rank oats. The standard weight for 
oats in Oregon is thirty-six pounds per bushel; but the country is so 
well adapted to their growth, that the weight of forty-five, even of 
fifty pounds, to the bushel, is often reached. Barley is also successfully 
raised. Corn is grown in many localities with success, but is not 
made a specialty, the average summer being too cool for its successful 
culture. 

The relative local productiveness varies in Oregon, as everywhere 
else, according to the nature of the soil, and the more or less skilful 
cultivation. With any thing like proper cultivation, good land will 
yield from twenty-five to forty-five bushels of wheat to the acre without 
manuring. With the highest cultivation, a considerably larger yield 
is obtained from the best lands, without the use of manure ; but thirty 
bushels per acre is a fair average. Of barley from forty to sixty, and 
of oats from fifty to eighty bushels, are raised per acre, according to 
soil and culture. Even on the "foot-hills," the yield does not fall 
below this. There is no insect, rust, or mildew of any kind to injure 
the crops of cereals in Oregon. Chinch -bugs have never troubled the 
farmers, and grasshoppers have never ravaged the State. Drought is 
equally unknown, as before stated. No failure of the wheat-crop has 
occurred since the settlement of the country ; that is, during a continu- 
ous period of thirty-three years. 

The foregoing paragraphs have special reference to Western Oregon. 
In Middle and Eastern Oregon, farming has been carried on so far 
only to a comparatively limited extent, so that the agricultural 
capacities of those districts are not as yet fairly tested. Grain has 
been raised on a small scale in some of the valleys. 

Barns and sheds for keeping the grain, which are indispensable in 
other countries, are scarcely needed in Oregon. The grain is threshed 
in the field by machines, and thence sent in sacks directly to ware- 
houses for storage or exportation. Owing to the dry summers, the 
wheat is not affected by the long sea-voyage to Great Britain, whither 
most of it is exported, and the double passage through the tropics inci- 
dental to it.* 

* The State of Oregon was awarded diplomas, "for," in the words of the judges, 
approved by the commissioners, " grains, grasses, cereals, dried fruits, and vegetables, for 
the extent and excellent quality of exhibit of all the above-named products;" again, 
"for a superior display of cereals, textiles, and timber resources, and the variety and 
excellence of her fruits, the salmon-fishery and the educational system evincing the 
steady development of the State; " also "for forest wood, for interest and variety of the 
exhibit, some of the specimens of most gigantic size." 



19 

Flax. — The soil and climate of Western Oregon seem peculiarly- 
favorable to the culture of flax. Formerly its culture was pursued 
mainly for the seed, some of which was manufactured into oil and oil- 
cake, and the remainder exported. Of late, however, it has been culti- 
vated to a considerable extent for the lint, which is of excellent quality, 
the fibre being both fine and strong, and of a peculiar silky gloss. 
With proper cultivation, from 400 to 800 pounds of clean fibre are 
obtained per acre. Shipments of Oregon flax have been made to the 
United Kingdom and New York, where it was pronounced a superior 
article, and brought from $300 to $500 a ton. Large orders for flax 
have been received in consequence of these first shipments from New 
York manufacturers. Thus the cultivation of this textile plant has 
ceased to be an experiment, and is a demonstrated success. It is a 
product the farmer can depend upon for a change of crops, and which 
yields larger profits than wheat, although it requires a more careful 
tilling of the soil. The establishment of a manufactory of thread, 
twine, and linen goods, is now on the point of being realized ; and with, 
it the cultivation of flax in Oregon will prove a source of lasting 
wealth and prosperity.* 

Hops grow luxuriantly, and have proved of superior quality; they 
give a large yield and sure crop. The yield all over the State is from 
1,300 to 2,900 pounds to the acre. It is claimed that Oregon hops 
contain greater tonic properties than those of California. 

Vegetables. — A superior quality of every kind of vegetable is 
grown in Oregon. Potatoes, cabbages, onions, turnips, squashes, beets, 
carrots, parsnips, cucumbers, together with such as partake more of the 
nature of fruit, like tomatoes and melons, grow in profusion. The 
yield of potatoes is from a hundred and fifty to three hundred bushels 
per acre. Potato diseases are unknown. Enormous crops of onions 
are raised on beaver-dam lands, in some instances a thousand to twelve 
hundred bushels per acre. This statement applies mainly to Western 
Oregon, but the leading species of vegetables have also been found to 
thrive well in Middle and Eastern Oregon. The potato-bug has never 
appeared in Oregon. 

Fruit. — Western Oregon excels as a fruit country. No finer fruit, 
of the kinds raised there, is produced in any quarter of the globe. 
Fruit-trees will grow from six to eight feet the first year; bear fruit 
the second, third, and fourth years, according to variety. They thrive 
in the valleys, as well as on the foot-hills, and up to a considerable * 

* Oregon Flax in straw and in lint was exhibited at the Centennial Exhibition of 
1876, and received medals and diplomas, " for," in the words of the judges, approved by 
the commissioners, "very fine quality, extraordinary length, good in strength, good color, 
superior gloss, and silky softness;" and for the oil manufactured at Salem, Oregon, 
from flax-seed, pronounced "of superior quality, fine color, being clear, fine, and free from 
sediment, of excellent body, and high merit." 



20 

height in the mountains, but especially in sheltered, dry soil. At one 
of the last State fairs, yearling prune, peach, and p'um trees, eight 
feet four inches high, and yearling cherry-trees seven feet high, were 
exhibited. 

Apple-trees commence bearing very young, sometimes producing fine 
fruit the second year after having been grafted ; and, if properly culti- 
vated, are always in full bearing when four or five years old. 

The fruit is large, highly colored, and of the most delicious flavor. 
It is free from the apple-worm and the bitter rot, and keeps remark- 
ably well, many of the varieties lasting through the whole year. The 
trees are so prolific, th,at, unless properly cared for, they are liable to 
exhaust themselves by over-bearing. 

Pears also grow to the greatest perfection. The trees begin to bear 
remarkably young, and are exceedingly healthy and vigorous, and will 
live to great age, being entirely free from diseases of any kind. The 
trees are very productive, and the fruit highly flavored. Pears have 
been grown weighing over three pounds. 

Oregon is the very Eden for cherries, plums, and prunes. The trees 
are perfectly healthy, grow vigorously, and bear much earlier than in 
the States east of the Rocky Mountains ; and for size, beauty, and 
excellence of flavor, the fruit is unsurpassed in any part of the globe. 
The plum and prune are entirely free from the attack of the curculio. 
A farmer living eight miles south of Portland sold his crop of plums 
and prunes to the Alden Fruit-Drying Establishment at Salem for 
$2,200, being the product of an orchard containing three and a half 
acres. Another gentleman sold his crop at an average of $500 per 
acre. Plums and prunes, especially the latter, are found to be so 
profitable for drying, that many orchards are being planted for that 
purpose. Not less than two hundred thousand trees have been planted 
within twenty or thirty miles from Portland in the last three or four 
years. There seems to be no danger of overdoing that business, as the 
plum and prune growing districts of the United States are very lim- 
ited, and immense quantities of dried prunes are imported from 
Europe. 

Trees of all varieties of apple, pear, plum, prune, cherry, &c, known 
in the best catalogues, can be obtained in the nurseries near Portland 
at very reasonable prices.* 

* Oregon Fruits were exhibited in considerable quantities at the Centennial Exhi- 
bition ; and, notwithstanding a journey of four thousand miles by express, they were in 
good condition, and were universally admired. They received medals and diplomas, 
"for," in the words of the judges, approved by the commissioners, "a remarkably fine 
exhibit of fifty kinds of apples, and eight kinds of pears ; all were of unusual excel- 
lence:" again, " cherries of remarkable size and excellent flavor;" "pears, ten varie- 
ties of superior excellence and size, beauty, and flavor;" "apples, twelve varieties of 
remarkable excellence, color, flavor, and size;" prunes, four varieties, "superior, and 



21 

Strawberries, currants, raspberries, and gooseberries, of a fine 
qual.ty, are raised in abundance. Several varieties of the hardier 
kinds of grapes are successfully cultivated, particularly in Rogue River 
Valley, where an excellent light wine, superior to that of California, is 
made from them. Peaches do well in the Umpqua and Rogue Valleys, 
but in the Willamette Valley the summer nights are too cool for their 
profitable cultivation. 

Of wild fruits, strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries, and salmon- 
berries, are found all over Western Oregon. 

Fruit-raising in Western Oregon already constitutes a considerable 
business, and promises excellent returns. In 1875, establishments 
were erected at various points for drying fruit, which is of the best 
quality, and finds a ready market in San Francisco, as well as in New 
York, China, Japan, South America, Australia, and other ports. Much 
of the fresh fruit is exported to California and the adjacent Territories. 
The Oregon apples, particularly, find a ready market in California, 
where only a much inferior article is raised. 

In Eastern Oregon (in the wider sense), many of the kinds of fruit 
grown in Western Oregon, especially apples, peaches, and grapes, do 
very well. 

Cultivated Grasses. — Timothy or herds grass grows well in 
every part of the State, and is the staple article for hay. It cuts 
three tons to the acre, even in the foot-hills and mountains. Red and 
white clover, with proper cultivation, will grow luxuriantly. Alfalfa, 
blue grass, red-top grass, and orchard grass, do finely everywhere. 

Live Stock. 

The mild winter climate, the fact that the native grasses remain 
green during most of the year, and the ease with which cultivated 
grasses can be raised, together make Oregon an excellent country for 
raising every kind of stock. Natural pasturage being so abundant, 
the general practice of the Oregon farmers is to provide fodder for 
only a part of the year, and to allow their cattle to roam at large dur- 
ing the greater part of it. In the cold weather that is occasionally 
experienced in the winter, the live stock suffer sometimes, but as a rule 
it does well enough in the open air all the year around. While stock- 
raising is successfully pursued in all parts of Western Oregon, the 
region most favorable to this pursuit is that east of the Cascade Moun- 
tains. The fact that various tribes of Indians hunted over it, kept 
out settlers until the former were confined to reservations a few years 
ago. Since then, stock-growers have moved into it in large numbers ; 

illustrates how well the State of Oregon js adapted to their culture: " also for " pears, one 
cluster of Clapp's Favorite, containing six large and handsome specimens, — an evidence 
of the remarkable fruitfulness of that variety." 



22 

and the number of cattle now grazing in it throughout the year, with- 
out shelter, is estimated to be not far from one hundred thousand head. 
It is said that insects never trouble the cattle there. 

The horses and horned cattle of the State represent a good average 
stock, and are continually improved by the importation of blooded 
animals from Europe and the Eastern States through private enter- 
prise. 

The stock-growers of Oregon suffer very little loss from the commoa 
diseases of live stock. 

There is always a good market for beef in the towns of the State. 
Much of the stock east of the Cascade Range is driven great distances 
to other markets. 

Sheep-raisiDg is attended with very great success in Oregon, owing 
to the cool summers, warm winters, and green feeding during the 
larger portion of the year. The first lot of sheep were brought into 
Oregon in 1839. The flocks of the State now number many hundreds* 
of thousands. Eor many years past, efforts have been made to im- 
prove the breed by the judicious introduction of animals of the best 
blood from various countries. The result is, that Oregon wool ranks 
high in the market, — much higher than that of California, the differ- 
ence being usually six cents a pound. It is strong, even, free from 
burrs, and of a fine texture, and much sought after by manufacturers.* 

The attention of the sheep-growers of other countries has already 
been attracted to Oregon, and a number of such have settled there. 
The wool-crop of Oregon in 1876 was 3,150,000 pounds. The mutton 
sold in the markets of Oregon is of excellent quality. 

Daring the last few years some Angora goats have been imported 
into Oregon. The animals have done very well so far. 

A farmer of Marion, County, Or., writes Feb. 7, 1877 : " I have 
lived in Oregon twenty-five years, having from 500 to 700 sheep on my 
farm of 1,000 acres for many years j and have not in all this time fed 
them one ton of dry feed in winter, they subsisting alone on the green 
grass. Have erected no building for their protection, but simply ( cor- 
raled ' them at night, summer and winter, with a common rail fence." 

The best imported sheep improve in Oregon, on account of its mild 

* Oregon Wool. Medals and diplomas were awarded upon wool from Oregon, exhib- 
ited at the Centennial of 1876, pronounced by the judges and the commissioners, " Merino 
wool, very fine specimens, of fine fibre and good staple, very much resembling Australian 
wool, and giving evidence that Oregon can produce wool of very great value: " again, for 
Merino wool "of fine staple and good strength;" "for fleece and combed wool of fine 
fibre, and healthy, resembling Australian, also Oxfordshire and Lancaster wool ; " " for 
three samples of Leicester combing- wool, noticeable for long staple and bright lustre; M also 
" for a sample of Cotswold wool, with twelve samples improved by a series of crossings 
pursued for many years, of high-bred Cotswold buck on high-bred Oxfordshire-down 
ewes, producing a combing-wool retaining the length of the original Cotswold, but with 
greatly increased fineness and softness, and total absence of hair.'* 



23 

climate, and facility for obtaining green pasturage all winter. (See 
note on page 22.) 

Though not an Indian-corn country, Oregon raises very fine hogs, 
which are fed on roots, apples, peas, wheat, and oats. Oregon hams 
and bacon are selling higher in the markets of the Pacific coast than 
the meats of the same kind in California and the Western States. 
Hog-raising has somewhat declined since the opening of railroads in 
the State, as the farmers can now do better by marketing their grain 
than by feeding it. 

The so-called " hog-cholera " has never prevailed. 

Dairies. 

The climate and fine natural pasturage of Oregon greatly favor the 
pursuit of the dairy business. The cool summer nights, the abundance 
of pure and cool spring-water, the freedom from sultry and wet weather 
and thunder-storms during the warm season, facilitate the production 
of butter and cheese. Of late years, dairy-farms have been started in 
various parts of Western Oregon. In the Willamette Valley, on the 
bottom-lands of the Columbia River, where splendid grasses grow spon- 
taneously during three-fourths of the year, and in the Cascade and 
Coast Hanges, a number of well-appointed establishments of this kind 
are successfully carried on. There is always an active home-demand 
for good butter and cheese, and the surplus product finds a ready sale 
in other markets of the Pacific coast. 

Export of wheat and flour from Portland and Astoria, Oregon, to 
Europe, from July 1, 1870, to Jan. 31, 1877 : — 



Year. 


Cargoes. 


Centals. 


Barrels. 


Value. 


1870-71 


12 


189,892 




$379,688 


1871-72 


12 


242,759 




531,689 


1872-73 


24 


508,430 




834,363 


1873-74 


54 


999,382 


97,610 


2,435,694 


1874-75 


67 


1,299,318 


116,158 


2,543,967 


1875-76 


64 


1,739,231 


89,529 


3,606,129 


Aug. '76 to Jan. 


'77, 59 


1,275,303 


103,437 


2,817,720 


Export of flour to China, 


1875-76, 


11,573 


45,351 


it u 


British Columbia, 1875-76, 


16,841 


83,845 



Export of flour to Sandwich Islands, 1875-76, 1,083 bbls. ; value, $5,876 
" " San Francisco, July 1, 75, to June 30, 76, 59,870 bbls. 

" of wheat, 239,095 centals. 
" oats, 78,000 bushels. 

" flour to Puget Sound and Alaska, 1875-76, 62,152 barrels. 
" wheat, 13,112 centals. 



24 

1876. 

Export of salmon to Europe, Australia, and San Francisco : — 

Canned, 428,730 cases $2,329,000 

Pickled 183,000 

Export of beef, canned, 33,250 cases; pickled, 5,429 cases, 

364 barrels . 350,000 

Export of wool, 12,423 bales 580,000 

Besides the above, large amounts of hides, tallow, bacon, hams, lard, 
pork, fresh, dried, and canned fruit, potatoes, immense quantities of 
lumber, hoop-poles, and staves, were shipped to San Francisco. 

From the lesser harbors on the coast large amounts of lumber and 
coal were shipped to California. The principal shipping-points for this 
trade are Ellenburg on the mouth of the Rogue River, Port Orford, 
Coos Bay, Gardiner City on the mouth of the Umpqua, and Yaquina 
Bay. 

Considering the number of inhabitants, these results are certainly 
not unsatisfactory. But, without any doubt, the aggregate productive- 
ness of Oregon could be very much increased, even with the same 
population, if the farmers generally showed more skill and industry in 
tilling the soil. It is a fact admitted and deplored by the leading men 
of the State, that the average agriculturist of Oregon is of an inferior 
order. Much too large a number of the farmers possess neither suf- 
ficient enterprise nor a knowledge of thorough farming, such as is prac- 
tised in the Eastern States and Europe. Too many confine themselves 
to producing only what can be produced with the least degree of effort 
and skill. Wheat-growing, than which no product can be raised any- 
where with less labor than in Oregon, is about all this class attempt-to 
follow. The number of such farmers as seek their ambition in getting 
the most out of the soil by growing a variety of products, and testing 
the capacity of their land by experiments with new articles, is alto- 
gether too small. There is especially an insufficiency of skilled dairy- 
men, fruit-growers, and vegetable-gardeners. For these very reasons, 
the onening for farmers that are accustomed to follow their business in 
t a thorough manner, and understand the application of the teachings of 
science to agriculture, is particularly good in Oregon. 

Population, Towns, &c. 

As already stated, the census of 1870 showed the population of 
Oregon to be 90,923. According to an enumeration under authority 
of the State, made in the summer of 1875, the number of inhabitants 
was found to be very nearly 100,000, to which must be added over 
15,000 new settlers not included in the census. 

The principal centre of population is the city of Portland, the com- 



25 

mercial emporium of the State, with an estimated population of about 
thirteen thousand. It is situated en the left bank of the Willamette, 
about twelve miles from its junction with the Columbia River. It is 
practically a seaport, the Willamette being navigable- to this point for 
oceau-steamers as well as sailing-vessels. To this, and the other fact, 
that excepting Astoria there is no other port on the coast accessible 
to vessels of deep draft, the growth of the place is mainly due, as it 
naturally becomes the receiving-point for the products of the entire 
Willamette Valley. The site of the city is very fine. It is regularly 
laid out, with wide, graded, and paved streets. Its business streets 
contain numerous fine edifices that would do credit to any American 
city. The same can be said of its private residences. Its public 
buildings are also very creditable. Its public market-halls are not sur- 
passed anywhere in the United States. The city has good schools of 
various grades, several banks with a working capital of some millions, 
a variety of manufacturing establishments, a number of commodious 
hotels, street-cars, and water and gas. It has telegraphic connection 
with all parts of the world, and boasts of three daily and several weekly 
papers. It is the terminus of two railroads, and the seat of a steam- 
ship company running two ocean lines of steamers (one to San Fran- 
cisco, and another to Puget Sound, British America, and Alaska), as 
well as a line of river-boats; and two other companies for the naviga- 
tion of inland waters, each of which runs a fleet of steamboats. A 
very active wholesale and retail trade in almost every mercantile branch 
is carried on. Some of the wholesale houses sell goods to the amount 
of millions. Within a few years the importance of Portland as a ship- 
ping-point has grown very greatly. Statistics of its export and 
import trade will be found under the head " Commerce." 

Oregon City, the county-seat of Clackamas County, on the Palls of 
the Willamette, twelve miles south of Portland, is an important manu- 
facturing point of 1,300 inhabitants. It boasts of good schools and a 
weekly newspaper. A United States Land-Office is located here. 

Salem, the capital of the State, and county-seat of Marion County, 
fifty-two miles south of Portland, on the east bank of the Willamette, 
is a very pretty and well-built town of 3,000 inhabitants. Numerous 
churches, schools, public buildings, manufactories, extensive mercantile 
houses, and fine residences, may be seen in all parts of the city. A 
commanding State House is partly completed and occupied. The State 
Penitentiary is located here. Two daily and several weekly news- 
papers are published at Salem. 

Albany, eighty-one miles south of Portland, also on the Willamette, 
is the liveliest and most progressive town of the Willamette Valley. 
Being situated in the very heart of an extensive and most fertile farm- 
ing country, it is an important shipping-point for domestic products 



26 

of every description. The Santiam and Albany Canal furnishes un- 
limited water-power, turning the wheels of several factories. Three 
weekly newspapers are published here. 

Astoria, the county-seat of Classop County, is situated twelve miles 
from the mouth of Columbia River, which gives it undisputable advan- 
tages as a shipping and commercial city; it has a fine water-front and 
good landing-facilities. At present it numbers about 2,500 inhabitants, 
but is rapidly growing and gaining in population, more so than any 
other town in the State. A weekly newspaper is published, and many 
of the principal salmon and beef canneries are located here. 

Of the other towns on the Willamette, Harrisburg, Corvallis, 
Junction, and Eugene City, are the largest. The last-named point 
is the head of navigation on the Willamette. 

On the coast there are but few small towns, as Newport, on 
Yaquina Bay ; Empire City, on Coos Bay ; Port Orford, and 
Ellenburg, the latter at the mouth of Rogue River. All of these 
are small shipping points, accessible to light-draft vessels. 

Roseburg, the southern terminus of the principal railroad of the 
State, is the leading town in the Umpgua Valley, with a few hundred 
inhabitants. 

Jacksonville is the largest town in Rogue River Valley, with an 
active business, and between 1,000 to 2,000 inhabitants. 

The principal centres of population east of the Cascade Mountains 
are Dalles and Umatilla, on the Columbia ; and, east of the Blue 
Mountains, La Grande, Union City, and Baker City, in Grande 
Ronde Valley. 

Means of Communication. 

Oregon does by no means possess all the channels of communication 
required for the better settlement of the country, and development of 
its resources. What the State stands most in need of is a direct con- 
nection by rail with the Eastern States by the Pacific railroads. The 
want of such a connection has been, and still is, the greatest obstacle 
to its more rapid growth. But, though not possessing all it needs, 
Oregon is yet better provided with natural and artificial means of 
communication than other new States. 

Navigable Water-Courses. — The principal river is the Colum- 
bia, which is navigable throughout the year to the Willamette, one hun- 
dred miles from its mouth, and thence eastwardly, with two interruptions 
at the Cascades and the Dalles, where there are railroad portages, to 
Priest's Rapids in Washington Territory, 396 miles from the ocean, 
and on its tributary, the Snake River, to Lewiston in Idaho, 470 miles 
from the ocean. 

The Willamette River is navigable for ocean-steamers and sailing- 



27 

vessels to Portland, 112 miles from the sea. At Oregon City it fulls 
perpendicularly over a ledge of rocks for about forty feet. These falls 
formerly proved an absolute obstruction to direct navigation. A pas- 
sage around them was first secured hy a portage on the Oregon City 
side. Subsequently locks were constructed on the opposite side, at a 
cost of several hundred thousand dollars, allowing of the direct passage 
through of steamboats. Hence steamboats now navigate the river as 
far up as Eugene City, 133 miles from Portland, during high water, 
and as far as Salem (51 miles) during the whole of the year. Three 
lines of steamboats were competing daring the winter of 187-1 and 1875 
for the traffic of the Upper Willamette. Small boats of a very light 
draft have recently been introduced, with which it is hoped to navigate 
the river all the year round as far as it is ever navigated. 

The Yamhill, Santiam, and Tualatin Pivers are also navigable for 
some distance during high water. 

The steamships of the Oregon Steamship Company maintain a 
weekly communication between San Francisco and Portland, and a 
monthly one between Portland and the towns on Puget Sound, Victoria 
in British Columbia, and Sitka in Alaska, formerly Russian America. 

Railroads. — It was natural that the first railroads in Oregon 
should be built in the Willamette Valley, where they were actually 
needed; for, owing to the regular interruption of navigation during 
the harvest months, the bulk of its vast products could not. previously 
be marketed at the most favorable time of the year. It is not too much 
to say, that the opening of a railroad through the valley marked a new 
epoch in the material history of Western Oregon, and that to it most 
of the relatively great progress of that region during the last few years 
is largely due. But for this artificial highway, the export of the staple 
products could not have possibly assumed its present large proportions. 
The railroads built so far in the State, while of great benetit to the 
inhabitants, have proved a' source of great loss to those that furnished 
the money to construct them ; repeating in this the all but general 
experience with new railroads in other parts of the Union. 

Of the two roads now in operation, the Oregon and California Kail- 
road is the more important. It is completed from a point directly 
opposite Portland on the Willamette, to Hoseburg in the Umpqua 
Valley, for a distance of two hundred miles. It follows the east bank 
of the Willamette, and touches all the leading towns in the State. 
Prom Hoseburg, a well-managed stage-line runs to E-edding in the 
Sacramento Valley, the present northern terminus of the California 
railroad system. It is hoped that , the latter will eventually become 
connected with that of Oregon by the completion of the Oregon and 
California Railroad. 

The other road, the Oregon Central, also commences at Portland, 



28 

within the city proper, on the west side of the river. After running 
for some distance in a westerly, it turns in a southerly direction. Only 
fifty miles of it (to the Yamhill River) are completed and operated at 
this time. It is intended to extend it in due time to Astoria in a 
north-westerly, and in a southerly direction to a junction with the 
Oregon and California, at a point a little over one hundred miles south 
of Portland, where a new town, named Junction City, has already 
sprung up. From the Yamhill to this point it will traverse a very rich 
country. 

Various railroad lines are projected, to connect Oregon with the 
Pacific roads and the railroad system of the Eastern States. 

Common" Roads. — The natural roads of the State are good. 
Several roads over the Cascade Mountains connect Western with 
Eastern Oregon. 

Commerce and Industry. 

Commerce. — Till within a few years, Oregon was commercially 
altogether dependent on California. It had no self-sustaining com- 
merce of its own, but drew its supplies from San Francisco, and sent in 
return its own products, such as wheat, flour, oats, ham, bacon, fruit, 
wool, salmon, &c, which, on being re-exported, passed as the produc- 
tions of California in other markets. But, with the introduction of 
railroads, the commerce of Oregon entered upon an era of independent 
development. Many supplies are still drawn, it is true, from San 
Francisco, instead of being directly imported from the great commer- 
cial marts of the East ; but the great growth of the export trade has 
led to steadily increasing direct importation from foreign countries. 
Oregon now ships wheat (as once before mentioned), dried fruit, flour, 
salmon, and beef, directly to England, flour and salmon to China and 
the Sandwich Islands, lumber to South America and Australia ; and 
draws, in return, supplies of mercantile wares from those countries. Of 
special promise is the trade with England and China. While in 1871 
only two vessels were chartered to load for China, at present there are 
five engaged in the China trade. In the shipping season of 1871-72, 
only twelve vessels were loaded for England ; but the number increased 
in the season of 1875-76 to sixty-five vessels ; from Aug. 1, 1876, to 
Jan. 1, 1877, the number of vessels was sixty-two. The direct trade 
with China, the Sandwich Islands, and Australia, is likewise growing. 

But the commerce of Oregon will doubtless attain its full develop- 
ment only when direct railroad connection between the harbors of the 
Atlantic coast and the waters of the Columbia shall be attained. 
Then only will Portland become entirely independent of San Francisco. 
There is scarcely any doubt that a large portion of the trade of the 
Pacific coast with China must eventually fall to Oregon, as the chief 
article of export to China from the Pacific coast for a long time to 



29 

come will be flour ; and of this Oregon can supply a better and cheaper 
article than California, as its soil is better adapted to the raising of 
wheat, and as it possesses greater water-power and cheaper fuel than 
its neighbor. The fact, too, that the mouth of the Columbia is several 
days' sailing nearer to the chief Chinese ports than the Golden Gate, 
will help to bring about a diversion of the trade with the Celestial 
Empire to Oregon, whenever the means of direct transportation to the 
Eastern ports by rail shall be secured. 

At high water ships of the greatest draft, and at low water vessels 
drawing seventeen feet, can easily come up the Columbia and Willa- 
mette to the well-built wharves of Portland. 

A cargo of wheat can be shipped from Portland to Europe for less 
money than from points west of the Mississippi. 

Considerable injury has been done to the commerce of Oregon by 
exaggerated statements of the dangers connected with the bar at the 
mouth of the Columbia. It can be said, without risk of refutation, 
that the passage of all craft over the bar, when proper precautions are 
used, is attended with no greater danger than the entrance of the 
Golden Gate or the harbor of New York. This truth has been con- 
firmed at various times by official investigations and reports. 

The constant increase of the shipping business at Portland and 
Astoria affords the best evidence that the bar is no obstruction to navi- 
gation. This increase will be clearly shown by the following tables 
compiled from the reports of the United States custom-houses at 
Portland and Astoria : — 



ENTRANCES AT 


PORTLAND FROM FOREIGN COUNTRIES. 




American Vessels. 


Foreign Vessels. 


Total. 


TEAR. 
















No. of 


No. of 


No. of 


No. of 


No. of 


No. of Tons. 




Vessels. 


Tons. 


Vessels. 


Tons. 


Vessels. 


1870. 


34 


19,581 


13 


7,468 


47 


27,049 


1871. 


48 


21,351 


10 


5.334 


58 


26,685 


1872. 


26 


11,946 


14 


9,140 


40 


21,086 


1873. 


21 


10,302 


33 


19,143 


54 


29,445 


1874. 


20 


11,766 


56 


34,063 


76 


45,829 


1875. 


14 


7,724 


19 * 


12,090 


33 


i9,ei4 


1876. 


18 


9,102 


63 


47,780 


81 


66,882 



CLEARANCES. 



1870. 


50 


22,581 


8 


4,241 


58 


26,822 


1871. 


56 


29,'^61 


22 


12,795 


78 


42,056 


1872. 


38 


19,946 


15 


9,372 


53 


29.318 


1873. 


34 


19,444 


36 


23,476 


70 


42,920 


1874. 


28 


17,076 


71 


42,439 


99 


59.515 


1875. 


58 


22,988 


31 


27,691 


89 


50,679 


1876. 


30 


15,444 


75 


61,173 


105 


76,617 



These figures do not, of course, include the coastwise trade to and 



from the lesser harbors of the coast, in which 



a large 



number of 



smaller vessels are employed, carrying mainly coal and lumber to the 
California markets. The principal shipping points for this trade are 
Coos Bay, Yaquina Bay, and the mouth of the Umpqua. 



30 

The Governor of the State, in his message to the Legislature, deliv- 
ered Sept. 16, 1874, says, " The value of our exports has reached a sum 
certainly exceeding ten millions of dollars. I estimate the export value 
of our wheat and flour at nearly four millions gold; of oats, other 
grains, and fruits, at one million ; of wool, hides, meats, cattle, and 
horses, at two millions ; of salmon, at one million five hundred thou- 
sand ; of lumber and coal, at one million ; of gold, silver, and iron, at 
one million five hundred thousand. This exhibit, for a population of a 
hundred thousand people, is almost without a parallel." 

Industry. — Oregon is, like all the newer States of the Union, 
mainly an agricultural country, with a limited development of industry. 
A good beginning has, however, been made in a number of industrial 
pursuits. 

Measured by pecuniary results and the capital employed, the salmon 
fisheries and canneries appear to be the most important branch of 
industry. In 1875, twelve canneries were in operation on the Columbia 
River, in which 231,300 cases of canned salmon, each case containing 
either 48 one-pound cans or 24 two-pounds cans, and large quantities 
of pickled salmon, were put up. In 1876, 428,730 cases were put up 
in seventeen canneries. In the coming season twenty-nine canning 
establishments will be in operation on the Columbia River, of which 
eleven are located at Astoria, one on the Willamette, and one on the 
Rogue River. More than 4,000 men and 450 fishing and several 
steamboats are employed in this industry : the capital employed in the 
business will not fall short of two millions of dollars. It is estimated 
that 600,000 cases of salmon will be- put up this year. 

Two years ago several proprietors of salmon-canneries began to put 
up beef in cans, and ship it to England. This experiment has met 
with success, and it seems that at no distant day this branch of indus- 
try will be equal to the salmon industry. In 1876, 33,250 cases of 
canned beef were put up. 

Next in importance is the manufacture of woollen goods, which has 
attained a high degree of perfection. There are at present four wool- 
mills in operation in different parts of the State. The most important 
are located at Salem, Oregon City, and in Brownsville, south-east of 
Albany. The cassimeres, flannels, and blankets manufactured in these 
establishments are of a very superior quality, and find a ready market 
both at home and abroad: especially is this the case with the blankets 
manufactured at Oregon City, which are sent to New York, where they 
command the highest price.* The wool-industry of the State consumes 

* Oregon Woolen Goods, manufactured in Oregon City, of Oregon material, were 
exhibited at the Centennial of 1876, and awarded medals and diplomas, "for," in the 
words of the judges, approved by the commissioners, "fancy cassimeres and blankets; 
for fancy cassimeres, substantial in fibre, of excellent finish, and good designs ; also for 
blankets of good quality." 



31 

about 1,250,000 pounds of raw material, of which 250,000 are im- 
ported. The manufactured goods represent a value of not far from 
$1,000,000. 

Many fine flour-mills, worked by either water or steam power, are 
already in operation in the State (their number was estimated to be 
eighty in 1872), and their increase keeps pace with that of the wheat 
product. The largest are located at Milwaukee (near Portland), 
Oregon City, Salem, Albany, Jefferson on the Santiam, Lebanon 
twelve miles east of Albany in Linn County, Eugene City, Spring- 
field, and McMinnville. They are capable of turning out from 300 to 
500 barrels of fine flour (of 196 pounds each) a day. In China, 
Japan, and the Sandwich Islands, it is now regularly preferred to 
California flour, which but a few years ago was considered the best. 
In 1873 the first attempt was made to export Oregon flour to England. 
The experiment was very successful. 

The lumber interest of Oregon is already important. In San Fran- 
cisco, as well as in China, South America, and the Sandwich Islands, 
the demand for Oregon lumber is very large, as it has been found most 
valuable for ship-building and other purposes generally. Saw-mills 
exist all over the State. At different points on the Columbia and 
Willamette Rivers, at Coos and Yaquina Bays, and Port Orford, large 
mills have been erected, each of which can turn out 75,000 feet of 
lumber per day, which is loaded directly on vessels from the mills. 
The saw-mills at Coos Bay ship about 24,000,000 feet, and the total 
export of the State at large is estimated at 100,000,000 feet annually. 
A good deal of the lumber product of the State is manufactured, within 
its limits, into doors, sashes, blinds, and for other domestic purposes. 
Very superior furniture is made from it. The number of saw and 
planing mills in the State was estimated to be one hundred and seventy 
in 1872. 

Ship-building has been followed for some time, with great success, 
at different points on the Oregon coast j and a number of fine vessels 
built there are now afloat. 

In 1876 the Oregon Iron Works at Albina near Portland built a 
steam revenue cutter for the United States Government, which is said 
to be the finest vessel in the revenue service. 

Not far from the iron mine near Oswego, already described under 
the head of "Mineral Resources," a furnace and a foundery on a large 
scale (erected at a cost of $100,000) have been in operation for some 
time. It is the intention of the owners to add a rolling-mill to their 
establishment. The pig-iron turned out by the furnace is of superior 
quality, and is sold in the home market, as well as at San Francisco, 
where it is deemed equal to Scotch iron. Some very fine castings have 
been made at these works. Charcoal, made from the timber in the 



32 

immediate vicinity of the works, is delivered at nine cents per bushel, 
but it is believed can be made still cheaper. Several other founderies, 
as well as machine-shops, are carried on at other points. 

Near Oregon City is a paper-mil], producing about 2,000 pounds of 
straw and other paper daily. An oil-mill at Salem produced 150,000 
gallons of linseed oil in 1873. Flax-mills have been erected at Salem 
and Albany, with a view to the eventual manufacture of linen (see 
page 19). 

There are also some establishments for the manufacture of wooden ware. 

Hemlock and oak bark being obtainable in inexhaustible quantities, 
a number of tanneries are in operation, but they do not as yet supply 
the domestic demand.* A good deal of leather is still imported, and 
at the same time large quantities of raw hides are exported. 

Several establishments for the production of various agricultural im- 
plements are in existence, but they also are insufficient to supply the 
home demand. Most of the machines and implements in use are 
imported at great cost. 

A comparatively new branch of industry is the drying of fruit and 
vegetables by machinery, and in the canning of the same. At Salem, 
Oregon City, Albany, and McMinnville, driers of the Alden patent, 
and at East Portland, Beaverton, and other places, of the Plummer 
patent, are in operation, which turn out the finest quality of dried fruit 
and vegetables. Canning establishments are erected at several places. 
The Oregon canned fruit and vegetables are mostly exported to Cali- 
fornia, where they command the highest market prices, owing to their 
fine flavor and excellent quality. At no distant day the drying and 
canning of fruit and vegetables will be one of the most important 
industries in the State, t 

Another method of utilizing the fruits of Oregon for shipment to 
every port has been invented, and successfully applied at East Port- 
land, Oregon. It consists in evaporating the water from fruit juices, 
compressing the residue into sheets containing all the essential proper- 
ties of the fruits, and rolling them up like cloth, in which condition 
they remain unchanged in any climate or by lapse of time, until again 
dissolved in water, when they return to their original condition. $ 

The foregoing shows that the industry of Oregon, taken as a whole, 

* Harness Leather manufactured in Oregon was exhibited at the Centennial 
Exhibition of 1876, and awarded a medal and diploma, " for," in the words of the judges, 
approved by the commissioners, "skill and workmanship in the preparation of the hide 
and the manufacture of the leather." 

t Dried fruits as prepared in Oregon for the market were exhibited at the Centennial 
Exhibition of 1876, and received medals and diplomas, " for," in the words of the judges, 
approved by the commissioners, M fine flavor, color, and condition." 

X Fruit juices thus prepared were exhibited at the Centennial of 1876, and awarded 
medal and diploma, " for," in the words of the judges, approved by the commissioners, 
" exhibit of condensed apple cider, butter, and jelly, well preserved, novel, and useful." 



33 

is still in its infancy, and that the country holds out strong induce- 
ments to industrial enterprise in many directions. That two essential 
elements of profitable manufacturing — viz., cheapness and abundance 
of raw material and of fuel — are found there, has already been inci- 
dentally mentioned. But another, of equal if not greater importance, 
also exists in the State ; viz., abundant water-power. No part of the 
Union is better supplied with natural power than Oregon. The falls 
at Oregon City alone could supply sufficient power for the entire in- 
dustry of a community with a larger population than that of the whole 
State, it being equal to over a million horse-power, and capable of 
great extension with little expense. 

The water-power of Salem ranks next to that of Oregon City. It is 
obtained by means of a canal leading the waters of the Santiam River 
into the bed of another smaller stream. A mile east of the town, the 
channel of the latter is divided by races, and approaches the place by 
two lines. On each line there are three falls of from fifteen to twenty 
feet. It is estimated that the power thus provided is equal to that of 
Lowell in Massachusetts. 

There is also considerable power at Albany, Harrisburg, and Eugene 
City. At Springfield, three miles above Eugene City, great power is 
furnished by the middle fork of the Willamette. The two other forks 
of the Willamette also afford vast power. The Tualatin River likewise 
supplies great power. On the Yamhill, La Creole, Lackiamute^ Mary's 
and Long Tom Rivers, considerable power is obtained. 

The water-power on the Upper Columbia is also very important. 
At the Cascades, sixty-five miles from Portland, the river has a fall of 
forty feet, from which power could be supplied to mills for miles on 
each side of the river. A number of tributaries of the Columbia, as 
the Sandy, Hood, and Deschutes Rivers, and Mill Creek, also furnish 
power. In Southern and South-eastern Oregon, power is obtained at 
Ashland and on Link River, connecting the Upper Klamath with the 
Lower Klamath Lake. The power on the latter is supposed to be 
equal to that at Oregon City. 

Lands. 

Reference has been made in another place to the "Donation Law," 
under which large grants of land were gratuitously made to settlers in 
Oregon. This act of Congress, while of great benefit to the State at 
the time, by attracting considerable immigration, has since proved a 
positive detriment to it. For the most easily cultivated lands in West- 
ern Oregon, the rich prairie lands of the Willamette Valley, were 
taken up under it, and have ever since remained in large tracts in 
comparatively few hands, and such hands too, to a great extent, that 
are either too indolent to cultivate all they possess, or unwilling to sell 
what they do not cultivate to those that would make their spare aores 



34 

productive. But for this law, much of the land in question would be 
still the property of the United States Government, and, as such, within / 
the reach of new settlers under the homestead and pre-emption laws. 
As it is, both the public and railroad lands of Oregon consist mainly 
of timber land, which is, of course, less easily brought under cultiva- 
tion. 

In the Willamette Valley, farms containing from 80 to 160 acres, 
with from 15 to 20 acres under cultivation, and from eight to twenty 
miles from the railroad, can be had at from $800 to $1,400 gold. 
Farms in a better state of cultivation cost, according to location, soil, 
and nature of improvements, from $10 to $30 gold ; well-improved 
prairie farms, in the best localities, can be bought at from $30 to $60 
gold per acre. In the immediate proximity of the larger towns of the 
northern part of the valley, land commands a still higher figure. 

The largest sellers of land in the State are the United States Govern- 
ment and the Oregon and California and Oregon Central Bailroad 
Companies, lands of which corporations were obtained under a govern- 
ment grant in aid of the construction of their railways. Both the public 
and the railroad land adapted to cultivation is mostly situated in the 
foot-hills of the Cascade and Coast Banges. Competent judges claim 
that the greater part of these lands is of the best kind, and equal in 
productiveness to the best prairie-land. Destructive fires, sweeping over 
the foot-hills, have in many places destroyed the timber so effectively, 
that it will cost but little to clear the ground entirely. A frugal and 
industrious man, with sufficient means for a start, may be sure of 
obtaining on these lands an independent livelihood within three or four 
years. 

Although surveys have been carried on for many years, vast tracts 
of public lands still remain unsurveyed. More government land is, 
however, now in the market than is likely to be taken up for a long 
time to come. There are five United States Land-Offices in the State, 
located respectively at Oregon City, Boseburg, The Dalles, La Grande, 
and Binkville, which afford the usual facilities to settlers wishing to 
avail themselves of the homestead and pre-emption laws. Under the 
"Homestead Law," every head of a family, male or female, or single 
man over twenty-one years, a citizen of the United States, or having 
declared his intention to become such, can enter, on payment of the 
registry fees, ranging from $7 to $22, 80 acres of any of the lands 
reserved by the government within the limits of the railroad grants, 
excepting lands bearing gold, silver, cinnabar, or copper; and 160 acres, 
if the claim is situated outside of the latter. After five years' bona-fide 
residence upon and improvement of the land, the government will 
give the claimant a regular title. Under the "pre-emption laws," 
persons possessing the same qualifications as claimants under the 



35 

homestead law, not being in possession of 320 acres in any of the 
States or Territories of the United States, may " enter " at a land- 
office, on payment of a fee of $2, and establish a pre-emption right, 
that is, a right to purchase a tract of 160 acres, either within or with- 
out the limits of a railroad grant, at $2.50 per acre in the former, and 
at $1.25 per acre in the latter case. Where the tract was offered for 
sale by the government, the land must be paid for within thirteen 
months from the date of settlement, otherwise within thirty-thre© 
months. 

The grants to the Oregon and California and Oregon Central Rail- 
road Companies comprise the odd-numbered alternate sections within 
twenty miles on each side of the road, to the extent of 12,800 acres per 
mile of road. The companies sell their lands on very liberal conditions, 
— at the low prices of $1.25 to $7 per acre, payable in United States 
currency. The purchaser can pay cash, in which case he will be allowed 
a discount of ten per cent on the purchase price ; or he can have ten 
years' time in which to make up the same by small annual payments, 
with interest at seven per cent per annum. In this case the purchaser 
pays down one-tenth of the price. One year from the sale, he pays 
seven per cent interest on the remaining nine-tenths of the principal. 
At the close of the second year, he pays one-tenth of the principal, 
and one year's interest on the remainder ; and the same at the end of 
each successive year, until all has been paid at the expiration of ten 
years. 

The State government has also for sale a large quantity of desirable 
lands granted to it by the United States. Its chief land-office is at Salem. 

The immigrant possessed of some means will always do better in 
Oregon, as everywhere else, by investing them in land already under 
cultivation, than by purchasing wild lands, provided he is careful not 
to pay too high a price, and to obtain a good title ; for he will thus 
make his labor at once productive, and avoid the loss of time and hard- 
ship incident to a new settlement. The greater number of immigrants, 
however, cannot be expected to be in a position to take the more advan- 
tageous course, but will have to avail themselves of the openings for 
settlement on government and railroad lands. To them the fact is of 
consequence, that the mild climate greatly lessens the discomforts of 
the first years of the life of new settlers, and that the legitimate 
rewards of the husbandman's patient toil are nowhere more certain to 
be reaped than in Oregon. 

New-comers often find it to their advantage to rent well-improved 
farms for a year or two. This practice enables them to become familiar 
with the country before settling permanently, and protects them from 
the mistakes incidental to hasty locations. The usual rates of rent are, 
one-half of the crop to the owner, if he furnishes, besides the farm, 



36 

seed, teams, &c. ; and one-third of the crop, if only the land and the 
permanent improvements thereon are furnished. 

Labor-Openings. 

The labor-market is influenced in Oregon, as in other parts of the 
world, by the seasons. During the rainy season, the chances for 
employment are less good than when the condition of the weather is 
more favorable to outdoor pursuits. But common laborers will be 
sure to find remunerative employment during the greater part of the 
year. The opening for experienced farm-hands is especially good. 
The usual wages for this class are from twenty-five to thirty dollars 
a month and found. The scale of wages for mechanics ranges from 
three dollars and a half to five dollars. Owing to the newness of the 
country, the opening for highly- skilled artisans is not so good as 
in the older States. Good domestic servants are in constant demand, 
and find ready employment at as high wages as in California ; viz., 
twenty to thirty dollars a month. All wage-contracts are on a hard- 
money basis. 

Ruling Prices. 

Taken as a whole, the cost of living is less in Oregon than in the 
Atlantic States, and no greater than in the Western States. Some 
important wares are held higher here than east of the Rocky Moun- 
tains; but all domestic products can be had at low prices, notwith- 
standing the higher rates of wages. 

For the past two years, wheat in bulk at Portland has averaged from 
80 cents to $1.20 ; oats, 50 cents ; potatoes, 50 to 75 cents ; apples, 
.50 cents; corn, $1.00; flax-seed, $2.00; onions, $1.50 per bushel. 
Best quality of flour, $4.25 to $4.50 per barrel. Good farm-horses 
can be had for $100 each; oxen, $125 per yoke; good average milch 
cows, $25 ; sheep, $3 per head ; wool, common graded, 35 cents 
per pound; beef on the hoof is worth 5 to 6 cents; butchered beef, 
10 to 12 cents; choice cuts, 18 to 25 cents; mutton, 12 to 15; veal, 
12 to 20 ; pork, 12 to 15 cents per pound ; chickens per dozen, $5.00 ; 
tame ducks per pair, $1.50; geese per pair, $3.00; turkeys per pair, 
$3.00 ; wild ducks per pair, 62 to 75 cents ; wild geese per pair, $1.50; 
pheasants per pair, 62 cents ; grouse per pair, 75 cents ; venison, 10 to 
12 cents per pound. • Butter, best dairy, 35 to 40 ; ordinary, 25 to 
30 ; cooking, 20 cents per pound ; eggs, 20 to 30 cents per dozen. 

In the country towns and the country proper, lower prices rule. 

The following list of prices gives the cost of groceries at Portland 
in January, 1877 : — 



CHEESE. 

Ankeny's per lb 20a25 

California .• 20 

Eastern 25 

Swiss 45a50 



CANNED GOODS. 

Oysters, 2-lb. tins 33a37| 

Oysters, Mb. " 25 

Corn, 2-lb. " 33a37 

Peaches, 2£lb. " 45a50 



37 



Peaches, 2-lb. tins 37-J- 

Table Fruits, 2-lb. tins 33a37 

Tomatoes, 2^ lb. " 75 

String Beans, 2-lb. " 33a37 

Asparagus 50 

Mushrooms 50a62 

Sardines 25a37£ 

Jellies 50 

COAL OIL. 

Devoe's, per gal 40a50 

Other brands 37 

CANDLES. 

Grant's, per lb 25 

Common 20 

Paraffine 45a50 

COFFEE. 

O. G. Java, per lb 33a35 

Costa Rica 27 

Guatemala 25 

Prepared ; . . . .33a37 

Mocha 45a50 

FISH. 

Extra Cod, per lb 10al2|- 

Extra Eastern Cod 12^al 5 

Salmon 8al0 

Salmon bellies, per kit $3a3 50 

Mackerel, No. 1, per kit 3 50 

Mackerel, mess 4 50 

DRIED FRUITS. 

Apples, per lb. . . ._ 8al0 

Peaches ' 12^al 6-J 

Prunes, pitted 25 

Prunes 18a20 

Raisins 25 

Raisins, in qrs., per box 1 37al 50 

Raisins, in eighths, per box 1 00 

Currants-, per lb 20a25 

Citron 50a62| 

PROVISIONS. 

Bacon, per lb 15al7 

Hams, Eastern 18a20 

Hams, Oregon 18a20 

Shoulders 12^al5 

Lard lG£al8 

SALT. 

Dairy, per 50-lb. sack $lal 12 

Coarse 50aG2|- 

Table, per package 25a37£ 



RICE. 

China, per lb 8al0 

Carolina I2^al5 

SALERATUS. 

Babbitt's, per lb 15a20 

Donnelly's 12£ 

SAUCES. 

Lea & Perrin's, per bottle 50a75 

Imperial 62£ 

Walnut Catsup 50 

Tomato " 25a37£ 

Mushroom " 62 

SPICES. 

Cloves, whole, per lb 75 

Nutmegs, peroz 12£al5 

Durham Mustard, per lb 75a85 

Assorted spices, per bottle 20a25 

SOAPS. 

Standard Company's C O, per 

box $1 37al 50 

M. & Van Hagen's, do 2 00 

Irving's pale. 1 50 

STARCH. 

Oswego, per 6-lb. box 1 00 

Oswego, per lb 20 

Corn starch 18a20 

Glenfield 20a25 

SIRUPS. 

Extra Golden, in kegs, per gal 80a85 

Extra Golden, per gal 85a90 

SUGAR. 

Crushed, per lb 15al6 

Pulverized 15al6 

Golden C I3%al5 

Island 10al2|. 

YEAST POWDER. 

Preston & Merrill's, per can . . 20a25 

Rumford's 18a20 

Donnelly's 18a20 

TEAS. 

Japan, natural leaf, per lb 50a$l 

Japan, fancy boxes 75a90 

Gunpowder $lal 75 

NUTS. 

Walnuts, per lb 20a25 

Almonds 37«50 

Hickory 20a25 

Filberts 30a37 

Pecans 30a37 



Government. — Laws. — Taxation. 

The Constitution of the State provides : — 

No law shall, in any case whatever, control the free exercise and enjoyment of reli- 
gious opinions, or interfere with the rights of conscience. 

No religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office of trust or profit. 

No money shall be drawn from the treasury for the benefit of any religious or theo- 
logical institution, nor shall any money be appropriated for the payment of any reli- 
gious services in either house of the legislative assembly. 

No person shall be rendered incompetent as a witness or juror in consequence of his 
opinions on matters of religion, nor be questioned in any court of justice touching his 
religious belief, to affect the weight of his testimony. 



38 

The mode of administering an oath or affirmation shall be such as may be most 
consistent with, and binding upon, the conscience of the person to whom such oath or 
affirmation may be administered. 

No law shall be passed restraining the free expression of opinion, or restraining the 
right to speak, write, or print, freely on any subject whatever; but every person shall 
be responsible for the abuse of this right. 

No law shall violate the rights of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, 
papers, and effects, against unreasonable search or seizure ; and no warrant shall 
issue but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly 
describing the place to be searched, and the person or thing to be seized. 

No court shall be secret, but justice shall be administered openly and without pur- 
chase, completely and without delay ; and every man shall have remedy by due course 
of law for injury done him in person, property, or reputation. 

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall have the right to public trial by an 
impartial jury, in the county in which the offence shall have been committed ; to be 
heard by himself and counsel ; to demand the nature and cause of the accusation 
against him, and to have a copy thereof; to meet the witnesses face to face, and to 
have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor. 

No person shall be put in jeopardy twice for the same offence, nor be compelled in 
any criminal prosecution to testify against himself. 

No person arrested or confined in jail shall be treated with unnecessary rigor. 

Offences, except murder and treason, shall be bailable by sufficient securities. 
Murder or treason shall not be bailable when the proof is evident or the presumption 
strong. 

Laws for the punishment of crime shall be founded on the principles of reformation, 
and not of vindictive justice. 

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed. Cruel and 
unusual punishments shall not be inflicted, but all penalties shall be proportioned to the 
offence. In all criminal cases whatever, the jury shall have the right to determine the 
law and the facts under the direction of the court, as to the law and the right of new 
trial, as in civil cases. 

In all civil cases, the right of trial by jury shall remain inviolate. 

Private property shall not be taken for public use, nor the particular service of any 
man be demanded without just compensation ; nor, except in the case of the State, 
without such compensation first assessed and tendered. 

There shall be no imprisonment for debt except in case of fraud or absconding 
debtors. 

No law shall be passed granting to any citizen, or class of citizens, privileges or 
immunities, which, upon the same terms, shall not equally belong to all citizens. 

No ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligations of contracts, shall ever be 
passed; nor shall any law be passed, the taking effect of which shall be made to 
depend upon any authority except as provided in the Constitution. 

The operation of the laws shall never be suspended except by the authority of the 
legislative assembly. 

The privilege of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless, in case of rebellion 
or invasion, the public safety require it. 

No conviction shall work corruption of blood or forfeiture of estate. 

No law shall be passed restraining any of the inhabitants of the State from assem- 
bling together in a peaceable manner to consult for their common good ; nor from 
instructing their representatives ; nor from applying to the legislature for redress or 
grievances. 

The people shall have the right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the 
State, but the military shall be kept in strict subordination to the civil power. 

No soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any house without the consent 
of the owner, nor in time of war except in manner prescribed by law. 

No law shall be passed granting any title of nobility, or conferring hereditary dis- 
tinctions. 

No law shall be passed prohibiting emigration from the State. 

Foreigners, who are or may hereafter become residents of this State, shall enjoy the same 
rights, in respect to the possession, enjoyment, and descent of property, as native-born citizens. 

The provisions of the State Constitution regarding suffrage are : — 

" All elections shall be free and equal. 

" In all elections not otherwise provided for by this Constitution, every male 
citizen of the United States, of the age of twenty-one years and upwards, who shall 
have resided in the State during the six months immediately preceding suoh election, 



39 

and every male of foreign birth, of the age of twenty-one years and upwards, wh« 
shall have resided in this State during the six months immediately preceding such 
election, and shall have declared his intention to become a citizen of the United States 
one year preceding such election, conformably to the laws of the United States on the 
subject of naturalization, shall be entitled to vote at all elections authorized by law." 

The executive branch of the State government consists of a governor, 
who exercises the chief executive power; a secretary of state, who 
performs also the duties of State auditor of public accounts; and a State 
treasurer, — all of which officers are elected for terms of four years ; but 
no person is eligible to any of these three offices for more than eight in 
any period of twelve years. In case of a vacancy in the office of gov- 
ernor, the duties of it devolve upon the secretary of state ; and in case 
of a simultaneous vacancy in the office of the latter, upon the presiding 
officer of the upper branch of the State legislature. The legislative 
branch consists of a Senate and a House of Representatives. The 
Constitution provides that the former shall not at any time exceed 
thirty, and the latter not sixty, in number. The legislature meets 
biennially, on the second Monday of September. 

Justice is administered in the State by a supreme court, circuit and 
county courts, municipal courts, and justices of the peace. All of the 
judicial officers are elected by the people. 

Under the State Constitution, the legislature is required, whenever 
the expenses of the State of any fiscal year exceed its income, to pro- 
vide for levying a tax for the following fiscal year, sufficient, with other 
sources of income, to pay the deficiency, as well as the ordinary current 
expenditures. 

The Constitution absolutely forbids the establishment by legislative 
act of any " bank or banking company or moneyed institution what- 
ever," as well as the issue of any bank-notes, or other promises to pay, 
intended to circulate as money, in any manner and for any purpose. 
But associations for banking purposes, excepting such of issue, may be 
formed under the general law regarding corporations. 

The Constitution moreover forbids the State to subscribe to the stock 
of, or to take any pecuniary interest whatever in, any company, associa- 
tion, or corporation. As will be seen by the following provisions, it 
guards also very strictly against the contraction of any considerable 
State debt, and of obligations by counties and towns and municipal 
corporations in the interest of private corporations : — 

The legislative assembly shall not loan the credit of the State, nor in any manner 
create any debts or liabilities which shall singly or in the aggregate, ivith previous debts or 
liabilities, exceed the sum of fifty thousand dollars, except in case of war, or to repel 
invasion, or suppress insurrection ; and every contract of indebtedness entered into or 
assumed by or on behalf of the State, when all its liabilities and debts amount to said 
sum, shall be void and of no effect. 

The State shall never assume the debts of any county, town, or other corporation 
whatever, unless such debts shall have been created to repel invasion, suppress insur- 
rection, or defend the State in war. 

No county, city, town, or other municipal corporation, by vote of its citizens or other" 



40 

wise, shall become a stockholder in any joint company, corporation, or association whatever, 
or raise money for or loan its credit to or in aid of any company, corporation, or associa- 
tion. 

No county shall create any debts or liabilities which shall, singly or in the aggregate, 
exceed five thousand dollars. 

By virtue of a statute-law, any non-resident citizen of the United 
States, or alien, — 

May acquire and hold lands, or any right thereto or interest therein, by purchase, 
devise, or descent; and he may convey, mortgage, and devise the same; and, if he 
shall die intestate, the same shall descend to his heirs ; and in all cases such lands 
shall be held, conveyed, mortgaged, or devised, or shall descend in like manner and 
with like effect, as if such alien were a native or citizen of this State. 

Under the laws of the State, every person of twenty-one years of 
age and upwards, of sound mind, may, by last will, devise all his 
estate real and personal, saving the dower of widows ; and every person 
of eighteen years of age, of sound mind, may, by last will, dispose of 
all his personal property. A married woman may will property held 
in her own right. 

A widow is entitled to dower, or the use during her natural life of 
one-third of all the lands of which her husband died possessed ; but a 
jointure may take the place of dower if assented to by her. 

The State Constitution provides that married women may hold, in 
their own right, property of every description, possessed at the time 
of their marriage, or acquired afterwards by gift, devise, or inherit- 
ance, which property is exempt from liability for the debts or con- 
tracts of the husband. To secure this exemption, an affidavit, setting 
forth the separate property of the wife, must be filed for registry with 
the clerk of the county. The same exemption is secured by statute 
to all real or personal property acquired by married women through 
their own labor. 

The statute relating to exemptions of property from seizure for debt 
provides as follows : — 

The following property shall be exempt from execution, if selected and reserved by 
the judgment debtor or his agent at the time of the levy, or as soon thereafter before 
the sale thereof as the same shall be known to him, and not otherwise: — 

1. Books, pictures, and musical instruments, owned by any person to the value of 
seventy-five dollars. 

2. Necessary wearing apparel owned by any person to the value of a hundred dol- 
lars ; and if such a person be a householder, for each member of his family, to the 
value of fifty dollars. 

3. The tools, implements, apparatus, team, vehicle, harness, or library, necessary 
to enable any person to carry on the trade, occupation, or profession, by which such 
person habitually earns his living, to the value of four hundred dollars. Also suffi- 
cit.it quantity of food to support such team, if any, for sixty days. The word " team," 
in this subdivision, shall not be considered to include more than one yoke of oxen, or 
a pair of horses or mules, as the case may be. 

4. The following property, if owned by a householder and in actual use, or kept 
for use, by or for his family, or when being removed from one habitation to another, 
or a change of residence : ten sheep with one year's fleece, or the yarn or cloth manu- 
factured therefrom; two cows and five swine; household goods, furniture, and utensils, 
to the value of three hundred dollars. Also food sufficient to support such animals, 
if any, for three months ; provisions actually provided for family use, and necessary 
for the support of such householder and family for six months. 



41 

• 

5. The seat or pew occupied by a householder or his family in a place of worship. 

The earnings of a judgment debtor for personal services, at any time within thirty 
days next preceding the judgment against a garnishee, shall not be included in such 
judgment, when it shall be made to appear, by the affidavit of the judgment debtor or 
otherwise, that such earnings are necessary for the use of a family supported wholly 
or partly by his labor. 

Taxation. — According to the national census of 1870, the total 
value of real and personal property, assessed in that year for purposes 
of taxation in Oregon, was $31,798,510 ; while the true value of both 
classes of property was $51,558,932. It appears from these figures, 
that, although the statute requires assessment at the full cash value, in 
practice taxes are levied on only about sixty per cent of it. Complaints 
of unjust assessment are heard before boards of equalization. Accord- 
ing to the State assessment of 1875, the total value of real and per- 
sonal property amounted to $41,436,086. 

In 1874 the State taxes amounted to five and a half mills ; the 
county taxes ranged from five to twelve mills ; and school taxes aver- 
aged three mills. In addition to these, a poll-tax of one dollar is levied 
annually on every inhabitant between twenty-one and fifty years of 
age. 

The personal property of infirm and indigent persons is exempted 
from taxation, as also the personal property of every householder to the 
amount of three hundred dollars. 

Educational Facilities. 

According to the statistics of education, taken in connection with the 
national census of 1870, there were in Oregon, in that year, G37 public 
and private schools, taught by 484 male and 142 female teachers, and 
attended by 16,753 male and 15,840 female, or a total of 32,593 pupils. 
The number of schools includes 3 establishments under the name of 
universities, 6 colleges, 10 academies; and 594 public schools — com- 
prising 4 high, 31 graded, and 559 common schools — were supported 
in the year 1873-74 at an outlay of $215,107. The value of the 
public-school property was $332,764 in 1873-74, and $26,608 were 
expended for new school-buildings in that year. Of the three universi- 
ties, one is a State institution, opened in 1876 at Eugene City; 
another, the " Willamette University," located at Salem by the Meth- 
odist-Episcopal, and the third, at the town of Forest Grove, by the 
Congregationalist Church. The universities are really but collegiate 
institutions. The colleges were founded and are carried on under the 
auspices of the Episcopal, Presbyterian, Baptist, Catholic, and Camp- 
bellite Churches, with the exception of the Agricultural College, which 
is a State institution. 

The means to sustain the public educational institutions are provided 
in part from special funds, but in the main from taxation. The special 



42 

funds are principally derived from the sale of lands donated to the 
State by the United States Government for educational purposes. 
For the public schools the grant amounted to 500,000 acies; for the 
endowment of a State university, 66,080 acres ; and for the Agricultural 
College, 90,000 acres. The Governor, Secretary, and Treasurer of 
State, are, by the State Constitution, made a board for the sale of the 
lands belonging to these several grants, and the investment of the funds 
derived from them. The first-mentioned grant has already yielded, up 
to September, 1876, $505,381. It is expected that enough will be 
eventually realized from it to meet the larger part of the expenditure 
of the State for public schools. From the university grant, not far 
from $100,000 is realized at this time. 

The State also supports establishments for the education of blind 
and mute persons. 

It is thus seen that Oregon possesses very good educational advan- 
tages. 

Who should go to Oregon? 

Some advice on this point has already been given indirectly, under 
" Labor Openings ; " but the subject is so important as to call for addi- 
tional suggestions regarding it. 

The first requisite to a person proposing to emigrate to a new coun- 
try, with a view to improving his condition in life, is good health. 
Although the climate of Oregon is so favorable as to insure exemption 
from diseases prevailing in other States, and promises relief in certain 
bodily troubles, the chances are that immigration will prove a mistake 
in the case of confirmed invalids compelled to work for a living. For 
nowhere more than in a strange land, among strangers, is there a 
need of the buoyancy of spirit enabling one to bear up under disap- 
pointment and hardships, which, as a rule, belongs only to a sound 
body. 

Persons beyond the active years of life, and without that adapta- 
bility to circumstances belonging to them, will also run considerable 
risk in emigrating, unless possessed of means. To such, old commu- 
nities usually afford better opportunities for self-support than new 
ones, where the struggle for success in life calls for more energy than 
pertains to mature age. Single men are obviously much safer in 
taking their chances than persons who have to provide for others. 
Heads of families especially, even if strong in body and not too 
advanced in life, should carefully weigh the possible consequences of 
emigration, both to themselves and to those whose future will be 
fashioned by their own. 

No one should think of emigrating to Oregon without sufficient 
means for self-support for at least a short time after reaching there ; 
for suitable employment immediately after arrival cannot always be re- 



43 

lied on, and there is nothing more discouraging to the new-comer than 
to become a subject of public or private charity. This caution applies 
particularly to heads of families, who would be cruelly derelict in their 
duty to expose those depending on them to the risk of destitution on 
arrival. Families who contemplate settling on lands will require, 
after providing for all travelling expenses, about five hundred dollars 
with which to meet the expenses of putting up a house, for live-stock, 
seed, farming utensils, provisions, &c. For renting farms, and work- 
ing them on shares, less ready money will suffice. 

Generally speaking, persons accustomed to ordinary and mechanical 
labor, and who unite frugal habits with persevering industry, will run 
the least risk in emigrating to Oregon ; but individuals unwilling to 
work, or accustomed to live by their wits, are not wanted in Oregon 
any more than elsewhere. Idlers will only go from bad to worse ; 
and adventurers will not prosper there. 

Success can also be promised to energetic farmers. However modest 
their beginning, they may be sure of finding themselves in possession 
of a competency after a few laborious years. But there is not only 
a fine opening for small farmers in Oregon; nowhere will stock- 
raising and ordinary farming on a large scale bring more satisfactory 
results. 

In Oregon there is no more lack than in other parts of the United 
States of lawyers, doctors, clergymen, and the followers of other learned 
professions ; and persons belonging to them will find it difficult to make 
their way to a lucrative practice. But, even in these callings, success 
may be achieved by capable men, prepared for years of patience and 
self-denial. 

In mercantile pursuits the opening is good for men of enterprise 
and capital ; but the chances for mere clerks are not very good. 

When and how to go to Oregon. 

Spring is by all means the best season ; the next, summer; the next, 
autumn ; and mid-winter the worst, for the journey to Oregon. In 
the spring, the chances of finding employment are better than at any 
other time of the year; and the purchasers or renters of land can 
immediately proceed with its cultivation. 

Emigrants from Eastern Canada and the Atlantic States have the 
choice between two routes to Oregon. One is by the steamers of the 
Pacific Mail Steamship Company from New York to Colon (Aspin- 
wall), thence by rail to Panama, thence by steamer to San Francisco, 
and thence by steamer of the Oregon Steamship Company to Portland, 
Oregon. The other is by rail all the way to San Francisco over the 
Pacific railways, and thence to Portland, Oregon, as on the former 
route. The Panama route is cheaper, especially for families, cooked 



44 

food being provided by the steamship companies ; but the journey from 
New York to San Francisco over it takes about a week longer than by 
rail. The overland»route is preferable for emigrants from the Middle, 
Western, and South-western States. 

Passage tickets at the present time, by steamer from New York to 
San Francisco, are, cabin, $135 currency; steerage, $65. 

Those who go overland will, in every case, save money by purchasing 
through tickets. Railroad fares of the different classes to Portland, 
Oregon, from the different Atlantic seaboard and interior cities, are 
constantly changing. Emigrant through tickets at the present time, 
are, to Portland, Oregon, — 



From Austin, Tex $87 35 From New Orleans $80 00 

" Baltimore 77 00 " New York 77 00 

" Boston 78 00 " Omaha,Neb 57 00 

" Buffalo or Niagara Falls . . 73 00 " Philadelphia 75 50 

" Chicago 67 50 " Pittsburg, Penn 72 00 

" Dallas, Tex 8190 " Portland, Me 77 00 

" Dennison, Tex 80 20 " Quebec, Can 77 00 

" Galveston, " 89 05 " Quincy, 111 67 50 

" Houston, « 87 80 " St. Louis 67 50 

" Montreal, Can 77 00 " St. Paul, Minn 72 25 

" Nashville, Tenn 76 50 



The stage-route from Northern California to Oregon can be recom- 
mended to persons of means. Fare from Sacramento to E-edding, the 
northernmost railroad station in California (180 miles), $8; from Red- 
ding to Portland, 480 miles (280 by stage, and 200 via Oregon and 
California Pailroad), $40. 

Emigrants from Europe can proceed to Portland, Oregon, either by 
steamer to New York, and thence via Isthmus of Panama ; or by rail 
overland ; or direct by English or German steamers to Colon, and 
thence to San Francisco and Portland, as already stated. The fare by 
the last-mentioned route is $92.50, gold. 

Distances from New York to Portland, Oregon : — 

Via Omaha and San Francisco 3,992 miles. 

" " Sacramento, and Redding . # 3,799 " 

" St. Louis, Denver, and San Fraucisco 4,150 " 

u " " Sacramento, and Redding 3,957 " 



Irt Oi v* 



APPENDIX. 



MONTHLY AND ANNUAL AMOUNT OF RAINFALL AT PORT- 
LAND, OREGON, IN INCHES, REPORTED BY U. S. SIGNAL 
SERVICE STATION. 



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1872. 


9.47 


.... 




.... 


.... 








.... 


1.80 


4.67 


9.47 


.... 


1873. 


8.49 


6.58 


12.26 


2.35 


2.18 


2.96 


1.02 


0.84 


o.eo 


3.86 


4.33 


5.15 


50.02 


1874. 


9.46 


4.28 


5.15 


3.68 


2.38 


2.68 


0.19 


0.83 


1.70 


0.S6 


10.22 


5.24 


46.17 


1875. 


4.49 


1.99 


9.41 


2.10 


2.87 


2.05 


0.02 


0.53 


0.71 


6.73 


15.77 


13.41 


60.08 


1876. 


4.80 


7.50 


9.12 


5.34 


1.88 


2.35 


0.96 


0.56 


1.09 


10.53 


13.03 


0.87 


55.03 



MONTHLY MEAN TEMPERATURE REPORTED BY U. S. SIGNAL 
SERVICE STATION AT PORTLAND, OREGON. 



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1872. 


41.90 


.... 


.... 


.... 


.... 


.... 


.... 


.... 


.... 


53.00 


41.60 


41.09 


1873. 


44.40 


40.60 


48.01 


51.30 


55.90 


61.50 


68.00 


67.70 


61.90 


49.90 


47.40 


37.00 


1874. 


42.90 


43.70 


43.10 


53.90 


59.70 


60.20 


68.30 


64.70 


61.90 


56.10 


45.30 


42.60 


1875. 


30.30 


40.50 


44.10 


56.20 


56.10 


62.20 


71.80 


67.70 


63.80 


58.10 


44.60 


47.80 


1876. 


38.97 


45.16 


44.89 


50.45 


55.47 


65.13 


66.51 


64.10 


62.93 


57.80 


45.79 


40.23 



HIGHEST AND LOWEST TEMPERATURE IN EACH MONTH, 
AND MONTHLY RANGE, REPORTED BY THE U. S. SIGNAL 
SERVICE STATION, PORTLAND, OREGON. 





1874. 






1875. 






1876. 






































© 


© 




© 




CO 


ft 


© 


P 


4 


© 


to 

5 


fn 


© 


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w 





a 


W 




h3 


56 


26 


30 


53 


3 


50 


58 


20 


60 


31 


29 


54 


24 


30 


59 


32 


65 


33 


32 


55 


34 


21 


59 


33 


77 


37 


40 


83 


28 


55 


67 


33 


83 


43 


40 


75 


40 


35 


82 


36 


82 


45 


37 


82 


39 


43 


99 


45 


88 


49 


39 


95.5 


46 


49.5 


90 


49 


84 


46 


38 


88 


46 


42 


84 


43 


88.5 


42 


46 


86 


44 


42 


90 


44 


77 


32 


45 


78 


36 


42 


79 


42 


63 


27 


36 


63 


28 


35 


63 


34 


57 


31 


26 


63 


33 


30 


56 


24 



© 

p 



January . . 
February . 
March .... 

April 

May 

June 

July 

August . . . 
September 
October . . . 
November 
December 



38 
27 
26 
34 
46 
54 
41 
51 
46 
37 
29 
32 



45 



46 

The following table was compiled from observations made by Mr. 
Thomas Pearce, at Eola, Polk County, Oregon, four miles from Salem, 
and more nearly represents the meteorology of the Willamette Valley 
than the observations at Portland. Mr. Pearce is a competent, con- 
scientious observer, well supplied with the best of apparatus from the 
Smithsonian Institution. 





<D 

■*» 

44° 56' 


Rainfall in Inches. 


Average Mean Temp, for 7 years. 


© 

a- 


Place of 
Observation. 


1870. 
33.11 


1871. 
40.84 


1872. 
37.90 


1873. 
36.28 


1874. 
30.71 


1875. 
41.28 


1876. 
42.37 


Spring. 


Summer. 


Autumn. 


Winter. 


© 

4J 


Eola, Oregon. 


48° 3' 


63° 7' 


51° 2' 


38° 2' 


25° & 



COMPARATIVE EXHIBIT OF RAINFALL AND AVERAGE MEAN 
TEMPERATURE AT DIFFERENT POINTS OF THE UNITED 
STATES, COMPILED FROM THE ANNUAL REPORTS OF THE 
CHIEF SIGNAL SERVICE OFFICER TO THE SECRETARY OF 
WAR. 



Place of Observation. 



Cincinnati, O 

Davenport, Io 

Milwaukee, Wis.. . . 
Indianapolis, Ind. . 
Knoxville, Tenn. . . 
Leavenworth, Kan. 

Louisville, Ky 

Memphis, Tenn. . . . 
New York, N.Y. ... 
New London, Conn. 
Philadelphia, Penn. 

Portland* Me 

Portland, Or 

Rochester, N.Y. ... 

St. Louis, Mo 

St. Paul, Minn 

Washington, D.C. . . 
Detroit, Mich. 





Rainfall 


m Inches. 


Average Mean Temper- 
ature. 


o 


4^M 


o 


o . 












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OO CO 


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£5 


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HO 


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3 

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c*0 

a 

■c 


a 
a 


3 




© 


C3 


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« ST 


S3 s 


2 


a 


3 


£ 


h-3 


©CO 


Om 


Hjl-3 


>"5>-5 


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02 


< 


39° 6' 


37.48 


36.50 


40.07 


34.00 


54° 4' 


77° 6' 


56° 8' 


34° 


41°30' 


41.49 


25.21 


38.47 


30.48 


47° 3' 


75° 2' 


50° 2' 


19° 9' 


43° 3' 




27.08 


31.95 


34.28 


40° 1' 


67° 9' 


47° 6' 


19° C' 


39° 42^ 


37.55 


42.66 


46.26 


43.23 


50° 8' 


76° 


53° 3' 


29° 2' 


35° 56' 


44.03 


57.06 


63.50 


63.99 


56° 5' 


75° 3' 


56° 3' 


37° V 


39° 21' 


48.12 


30.91 


35.04 


29.78 


51° 7' 


79° 


54° 1' 


27° 6' 


38° 00' 


38.67 


40.42 


43.33 


39.05 


54° 5' 


78° 5' 


56° 9' 


34° 2/ 


35° 08' 


43.17 


51.57 


49.39 


47.28 


59° 8' 


80° 7' 


60° 1' 


4!)° 2' 


40° 42' 


46.28 


42.45 


42.63 


36.24 


46° 1' 


72° 2' 


53° 7' 


30° 4' 


41° 22' 


49.61 


41.09 


65.35 


53.26 


43° 3' 


67*9' 


51° 6' 


28° 1' 


39" 57' 


42.11 


51.31 


49.32 


39.03 


47° 6' 


73° 4/ 


54° 2' 


31° 4' 


43° 40' 


42.32 


35.95 


42.23 


38.96 


40° 7' 


65° 


47° 8' 


22° 2' 


45° 30' 


43.41 


53.12 


43.69 


41.45 


51° 9' 


65° 3' 


52° 8' 


40° V 


43° 08/ 


29.51 


47.60 


47.17 


25.48 


41*1' 


68° 4' 


50° 3' 


23° 3' 


38° 37' 


31.50 


39.27 


42.93 


43.66 


53° 3' 


79° 1' 


55° 7' 


33° 


44° 53/ 


31.27 




33.42 


32.42 


40° 8' 


70° 4' 


42° 6' 


11° 8' 


38° 53' 


28.50 


46.16 


39.23 


30.68 


52° 2' 


76° 9' 


55° 9' 


44° 3' 


42° 21' 




28.54 


31.31 


25.64 


43° 


69' 4' 


49° 5' 


23° 2/ 



43° 6^ 

55° y 

48° y 
46° 8>- 
37° 6' 
51° V 
44° 2^ 
40° 5' 
41° 8' 
39° 8' 
42° 
42° 8' 
25° 2' 
45° V 
46° \r 
58° 6' 
32° V 
46° 1' 



47 



UNION AND CENTRAL PACIFIC R.R. 



LIIsTE 

VIA 



'9 
AND ALL POINTS ON THE PACIFIC COAST. 



Through Time Westward. 



Leave Boston 5.00, P.M., 

Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. 
[Leave New York 8.55, P.M., 

Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. 
Leave Philadelphia 11.55, P.M., 

Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. 
Leave Baltimore 6.45, A.M., 

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. 
Leave Cincinnati 7.00, P.M., 

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. 
Leave Chicago 10.50, A.M., 

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. 
Leave St. Louis 8.30, A.M., 

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. 
Leave Omaha 12.15, P.M., 

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. 
Arrive Ogden 6.15, P.M., 

Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. 
Arrive Sacramento 10.25, A.M., 

Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. 
Arrive San Francisco 5.35, P.M., 

Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. 



Freight Department, U. & C. P. Line. 

TWO THROUGH FREIGHT TRAINS LEAVE DAILY, 

EAST AND WEST. 

Past Freight Line. Only 14 days' transit between the Atlantic and Pacific. 

Through rates and bills of lading given from all prominent Eastern Cities to SAN 
FRANCISCO, SACRAMENTO, MARYSVILLE, STOCKTON, SAN JOSE, 
OGDEN, SALT LAKE CITY, an <l all principal cities in Nevada, and the Territories of 
Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, and Montana. 

SPECIAL FREIGHT RATES GIVEN TO ACTUAL SETTLERS, AND 
CARS CHARTERED FOR HOUSEHOLD GOODS, ETC., but not for pas- 
sengers. 

Apply to the Company's Agent, 287 Broadway, New York, or communicate with 
the General Freight Office, C. P. R. R., San Francisco, Cal., on East Bound Freight; and on 
West Bound, with 

E. P. Vixiing, 

General Freight Agent U. P. R.R., Omaha, Neb. 



48 

UHION PACIFIC RAILROAD 



Rates charged for Transportation of Passengers with their Household Goods 

Box cars are chartered with the privilege of loading household goods, mova- 
bles, farming implements, and other articles pertaining to the outfit of a family; 
and, if wished, a few head of live stock may be included in the carload. The 
total weight of the load should not exceed twenty thousand pounds. Two or 
more families may join in making up such a carload of freight, and no additional 
price is charged. 

No person is allowed to ride in such a car. "We do not charter cars for carrying 
passengers. Each person must be siapplied with a ticket. Comfortable coaches 
for passengers accompany all freight trains ; and shippers can have free access to 
their carload of freight at reasonable times, to feed and water their live stock, it 
being understood that such animals are carried at the owner's risk, and are to be 
fed at his expense. 

The present rate for the transportation of a carload of freight, as above, from 
Omaha to San Francisco, is $400. 

No passes are given to men in charge. 

Freight charges must be prepaid. 

Household goods well boxed will be taken in less than carload lots by freight 
for $4.50 per one hundred pounds. Freight in trunks is charged double this rate. 
The Company do not guarantee that any particular time will be made, and will 
not be responsible for delays. The usual time is about twelve days. 

Rates of passenger fare between the stations named above are as follows: — 

First class Ticket, good on express trains, $100.00 : Time, four days. 

Second class Tickets, good on express trains, $75.00: Time, four days. 

Third class Tickets, good in emigrant coaches on freight trains, $45.00: Time, 
nine days. 

Children between five and twelve years of age are taken at half fare. Under 
five years of age, free. One hundred pounds of baggage allowed free for each 
full fare. Fifty pounds for each half fare. Extra baggage, fifteen cents per 
pound, first and second class; ten cents third class. 

The rates herein named are those which are now in force, and are subject to 
change at any time. 



Through Tickets from Omaha to Portland, Oregon, via Steamers from San 
Francisco, now cost as follows: — 

First Class, $125.00. Second Class, $95.00. Third Class, $57.00 each. 



ISP 23 We cannot guarantee freight rates beyond San Francisco, as the Steamers 
sometimes charge according to the room that the freight takes up, instead of 
charging by its weight. 

T. L. KIMBALL, E. P. VESTING, 

General Ticket Agent. General Freight Agent. 








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